Memories
by urzailove
Summary: He wasn't always the Fire Lord. When they met, he was just a boy. When they loved, he was just Ozai. Before he found a way to break the condition of an unconditional love, he was her prince. Ursa wasn't always sad. She wasn't always submissive. She was the only one who didn't fear him. Until, of course, she did. Ignores The Search.
1. First Meeting

Normal font tells the story from Ursa's POV.

**Bold font is Ozai's POV.**

This ignores The Search's existence.

I was five years old when I met my future husband—the man who would turn greatest love into deepest tragedy, the boy who would define and destroy my life.

The phoenix who would consume me heart and soul.

**She had fire in her eyes back then. Even as a child, those crystal flames blazed more fiercely than any firebender's. Even as a child, her gaze pierced my heart more deeply than any other's. They were flames and pools and jewels all at once. They were bottomless, fathomless, unending... Brilliant as the sun. Burning, unquenchable, until my darkness would finally snuff them out. They would gleam for decades. They would radiate and shine and overcome everything but... me. As much as they might seem to win me over, as much as they would shape and mold me, guide me towards the light, they couldn't prevent what I would allow myself to become. I alone was responsible. Only I could have saved me from myself, but I relied on her do it for me. And even her eternal flame had to dim.**

** Even her cleansing fire could only do so much to purify the corrupt.**

It was spring, and I wanted to feed the turtle ducks. Though the royal gardeners had taken precautions to keep them out of the palace, the creatures still flocked there. There were always some swimming in—or hiding near—the dragon fountain. My mother had taken me there a few days prior and pointed out some eggs that were about to hatch. I would've forgotten about them if I hadn't been spending the way with my cousin. She was far from an engaging babysitter, and I escaped from her with ease. The guards let me inside with chuckles, trusting that a non-bending five-year-old could only do so much damage and not expecting the royal family to visit that day.

Somehow, they hadn't been aware of the little boy by the fountain. From their post, they couldn't hear the birds' angry cries as he growled and kicked at them.

I didn't know who he was. I saw the back of his crown, but it didn't register as a prince's. Even if it had, I would've done the same thing. After all, turtle ducks were my favorite.

"**Bully!" the little girl declared with a wrath that rivaled my father's, interrupting my attempt to send a fireball towards one of the beasts.**

** I spun around to face my accuser, shocked by her forcefulness and authority. It was only the second time, in my young life, where I'd been addressed with that tone. The first had been earlier that same day and was, in fact, what caused me to take out my frustration on the turtle ducks.**

** She glared fiercely, hands on her hips, lower lip pouted out in the most adorable—**

"**You viper-bat!"**

** My jaw dropped for the first time in my memory. I had never been so insulted. Only my brother ever called me names, and he only did so in jest, out of affection.**

_**Is she insane?**_

"Do you know who you're talking to?"

In the eyes of a five-year-old, he was nothing special. There was nothing remarkable "at first sight." He was a boy. He didn't look that weird. His clothes were nice. His hair was almost as long as mine. There was an odd glimmer in his eyes that he seemed to be wiping away... He was two years older than me, and much taller, which did annoy me quite a bit.

"They wouldn't play with me!" was his defense, glowering back with impossibly golden eyes I barely noticed.

Forgetting him, I tended to the turtle ducks, checking them for injuries and avoiding their pecks the best I could. The infuriatingly taller boy still stood, stunned that I would ignore him.

_**Is she dumb? Is she deaf?**_

"Did you hear me? They wouldn't play!" he repeated, yelling so loudly that I glared up at him.

"Of course not! They're afraid!" I scolded before returning to my turtle ducks, cooing and quacking and winning the approval of one. I stroked her feathers, and the boy sat down next to me, his eyes wide in awe.

"**See? You have to be gentle," she said with a smile that would turn my world upside down, that would give my life a new purpose. "There's no excuse for acting like a** **dragon."**

"I can be... gentle," he grumbled.

**The word felt wrong in my mouth.**

"It's not like I was going to burn them."

**She scowled, seeing the truth, and her next words made my jaw hit the ground.**

"**That's a lie. If you lie to me again, I'm going to leave and never ever talk to you again," she threatened, starting to stand.**

He reached out and grabbed me by the hand. He was, in fact, _gentle_, and his eyes were large and desperate, pleading in a way his mouth couldn't.

"I won't!"

"What's your name?"

** Her question took me off guard, but I didn't mind. I answered instinctively, without hesitating, but leaving out my title. I'd never done that before. I always gloated in it. For the first time, I didn't want someone to know. For the first time, I was ashamed of being prince, and I didn't know why. **

"Ozai."

"Promise me, Ozai," **she commanded as though **_**she **_**were the royal.** "Promise you'll never lie to me again."

** Perhaps the most shocking about that day was that I did. I promised her in the name of every Fire Lord that ever was, in the name of my honor and my country. **

** And I meant every word.**

"Okay," I replied to his solemn vow with cheer, not knowing how much it meant. "Now prove you can be gentle."

**She thrust a loaf of bread in my face.**

He tore the bread apart with inexplicable rage, maddening the turtle ducks in turn as their heads were pelted by bread crumbs.

"See! They hate me for no reason! They're scared of me. Like everyone else..."

**We both pouted, but she tilted her head in curiosity while I sulked.**

"Well, maybe if you weren't so angry all the time, they wouldn't be afraid."

His eyebrows shot up before frowning in confusion, as though the concept was unheard of.

"But, if no one fears me—"

"Try it like this," she ordered, demonstrating how to toss the crumbs in a way that guided the turtle ducks closer and teaching me how to feed them from my hand without losing any fingers.

After a few minutes of play, he dared to ask my name.

"Ursa."

I paused and threw more crumbs before remembering to ask, "Are you a prince?"

**She asked it very matter-of-fact, as if she were asking my stance on fire flakes.**

"**Yes," I responded simply in turn.**

**She pouted a frown.**

"**Do I have to call you 'Prince' Ozai?"**

"**No," I insisted—even though I knew she did.**

** I demanded it of everyone else, but I didn't want her to. On her lips, the title seemed stuffy, formal, and sickeningly **_**proper**_**. The very idea of her addressing me with it, time and time again, was disgusting.**

"**Never," I promised.**

**She smiled, and I forgot how to throw breadcrumbs.**

Eventually, a new turtle duck poked her head out from behind the dragon. We smiled towards her softly, throwing crumbs out in invitation. She swam out, followed by a train of fluffy turtle ducklings babes that made me beam with delight.

**Ursa beamed with delight, and I never wanted her to stop. Her eyes shone on the turtle ducklings, and even I had to admit they were cute. I didn't have to admit it aloud, however, so I teased the girl about her glee, hoping that she would smile even more, devoted to seeing her eyes alight.**

Ozai began to play with the little turtle ducklings, but the mother thought he was being too rough. She let out a warning that went unheeded so she leaped at his foot, clamping her beak down hard as he howled.

**Ursa **_**roared **_**with laughter, but the music was worth all the dishonor in the world. I blushed for the first time in my memory, shaking my leg even harder in attempt to free myself. I sentenced the mother to a life in the volcano—and the hatchlings to death by soup.**

I couldn't stop laughing, tears filling my eyes even as I tried to help him.

"Hold still! I'll tickle her!"

"Turtle ducks aren't ticklish!"

"Ya huh!" I contradicted, proving it once we held still.

**She was right.**

**I was wrong.**

** It was all I could do to keep my face from flaring red. I'd been corrected. Put in my place for the second time in that day, and the second time in my life. If Ursa's eyes hadn't been so bright, if her smile hadn't been so sweet, or if her laugh hadn't been so song-like, she might have left the garden sobbing.**

"That turtle duck is crazy!"the little prince declared before sitting back down to glare at any creature that came near him.

"That's what moms are like," I explained with a shrug. "If you mess with their babies, they're going to bite you back."

**Mom. It was a word I didn't know. Not really. My head knew it, but my heart could never understand. It evoked no memories. No nostalgia or pain. The only emotion it evoked was guilt. I wasn't supposed to have happened. Fire Lady Ilah should've been too old to have me. She died trying to give me life, and I was, quite literally, born a murderer. **

He turned on me suddenly.

"What are you doing here?"

"Feeding turtle ducks," I quipped oh-so-cleverly.

"I mean, what are you doing _here_?"

The palace garden was only open to the Royal family and their guests.

"Mommy brought me here and showed me the eggs. Daddy said we could go again after they hatched, but they're both too busy today. My cousin wouldn't take me. She wanted to paint her nails. So I sneakeded out."

"It's sneaked."

"Huh?"  
"I sneaked out. Not sneakeded."

"No, _I _sneakeded."

He sighed.

"Why were you so mad?" I asked, petting a chick's belly.

"Huh?"

"When you were about to burn the turtle ducks."

**I thought about denying it, but I had a strange feeling that she would see through the lie.**

"**Why were you so mad?"**

** I pictured my father's face, remembering the drastic change in every feature when I mentioned, "When I become Fire Lord..." The amused grin morphed into a cruel grimace. My brother winced as Azulon let out a sharp reprimand and seemed half-prepared to set me aflame. He couldn't fathom such impertinent treason and insisted on punishing my tutor for not informing me that only a crown prince could become Fire Lord. ****Even**** knowing my ignorance, Father looked at me as though I wished my own brother were dead. When I started to say sorry for perhaps the first time in my life, he cut me short. "A prince of the fire nation NEVER**** apologizes." **

** Azulon would never smile at me again.**

A dark cloud fell over his face, and my heart went out to him. He looked angry, yes, but more sad than anything else. Part of me wondered if—maybe, just maybe—that glimmer in his eyes had been a tear. He was so terribly sad that I wanted to throw my arms around him and never let go.

"I can never be Fire Lord," he answered honestly, dropping his head in shame.

** I didn't expect her to understand. How could she? She was five. She was a girl. She would probably laugh at this "problem." She would mock me for being so silly and impossible. She would call me proud and greedy.**

** But she didn't.**

** She wasn't very sympathetic, but she tried to understand. She pouted in thought rather than irritation, confused, trying to rleate.**

"**So? Why would you want to be Fire Lord? He's so old, and my cousin says he never smiles. He doesn't have time for fun and games cause he has to win the war."**

Ozai just blinked at me, realizing he didn't have an answer. He opened his mouth to explain why it was so great and desirable, but he seemed to realize the weakness of his own arguments. The dark cloud came back again, however, and he seethed.

"And my dad... my dad hates me."

**This she **_**did **_**dismiss as absurd.**

"Daddys never hate their children. They get mad sometimes, and they can seem really mean and scary, but that's just cause _they_'re scared too. My mom and dad told me."

The prince sneered with a child held high.

"My daddy never gets scared."

** She looked at me with those big eyes that made me question everything I knew to be true. When she looked at me like that, head tilted, long hair hanging off her face, my tummy felt funny and my head got fuzzy. I didn't like it.**

"**Everyone gets scared, Ozai."**

At age seven, the prince had already mastered scoffing.

"Everyone? Even you?"

"**Mm-hmm!" she nodded happily.**

He grinned at me for the first time, and his eyes somehow sparked even more. Others might've been frightened by their mischief, but I was too wrapped up in their gold warmth. They burned and glowed and melted all at once, with fire all their own. How were they possible? How could anyone have eyes so like honey? So like two blazing suns?

"Prove it," he ordered like the prince he was, but I refused to obey.

**Ursa didn't even blink, baffling me yet again. She smiled more, which I couldn't complain about, but I hated that I couldn't understand her. I understood everyone—or at least I understood their fear. Anyone else would've obeyed me instantly, swiftly, with fear in their eyes. But she didn't. She just smiled. She treated me like the little boy I was.**

"I'll tell you if you tell me."

"Never!" he declared with that ugly sneer again, and I rose to leave.

"Goodbye then, Ozai."

I began to walk off, but my steps were slow and few, waiting for the prince to catch up.

"Ursa!" he whined, gently grabbing me by the arm. "You have to do what I say!"

"Why?"

He released me and stammered, never having had to explain it before.

"Because... because I'm the prince!"

"That's no reason to be bossy," I informed him, leaving his mouth agape for the fifth time that morning. "My daddy says that when a boy tells me that I have to do something, I should kick him in the pants."

He took a step back and raised a suspecting brow before resuming a tone of nasal authority.

"But I'm the _prince_! And I say tell me!"

"**You have to ask nicely. And say please."**

**I glared my irritation, crossing my arms.**

"**Fine. **_**Please**_**, Ursa—"**

"**Lady Ursa."**

"**Your mom's not dead."**

**Again, not a blink.**

"**So?"**

"**So you're not a lady."**

"**Please, Lady Ursa," she repeated firmly, unabashed.**

He glowered even more, making me giggle.

"**Please, LADY Ursa, tell me what you're afraid of."**

"**Okay!"**

**I was almost startled that she agreed, but I was excessively pleased.**

"**You have to promise not to laugh."**

"**I promise."**

** She became very grave, and I became grave with her. There was nothing more precious to her than confessing a secret, and there was nothing more sacred to me than receiving it. Ursa took my hand in hers to form the holy connection, interlacing our fingers as she whispered with large eyes and a weak voice.**

**"I'm afraid of the dark."**

Ozai looked confused.

**"But... why don't you just firebend?"**

**She should've been offended, but she just looked at me.**

**"I can't."**

_He _disagreed.

"Of course you can! You're a firebender! You have to be with eyes like..." he trailed off when I tilted my head in question. "Nevermind. You don't have to be afraid of the dark, Ursa. I can teach you."

"But... what if you can't?"

He scoffed again, dismissing my concern with a wave of his hand, and led me towards a grassier space in the garden.

"I can do anything I want."

"Except become Fire Lord," I pointed out only to receive an icy glower.

**She giggled again. How could so many others quake at what she found so amusing?**

"I'm going to be your firebending master."

**She frowned at the word.**

"_Master_?"

"Er, teacher!"

"But Ozai, what if...?"

"Don't worry, Urza. You'll never have to be afraid of the dark again. I'll light it for you."

** Our roles would be so reversed, and I had not the faintest idea. But I should have known. Even then, I should have known from the way her gentle smile brightened my innermost being.**

** I should have known from the way her amber flames ignited my soul.**

"Come on!" he encouraged rather than commanded as he began to demonstrate something. "Stand like this!"

"**I don't know about this..."**

"**Don't you want me to learn how to bend? Let me teach you!" **

"**Ozai, I can't! I've never bended before! Fire does change at all when I'm angry or sad or—" **

"**That doesn't mean anything. My brother didn't bend until he was eight years old. He says it's because he never had a reason to. Our dad was really impatient for him to bend already, which made everyone else nervous so the maids let the fire in Iroh's room die out one night. He woke up and called for them, but they refused. Even the guards wouldn't go. Still, it wasn't the cold that made him bend. He just wanted hot water for tea so he lit the fireplace himself."**

"**Prince Ozai?" an exasperatingly familiar voice called from across the garden.**

_**Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear.**_

"Whaaat?" the young prince complained, turning to glare at the young man approaching us.

"Is that your dad?" I asked innocently enough.

"Of course not!" Ozai scoffed again, irking me.

"I think there's something wrong with your nose."

"Huh?"

"**You keep squishing it up like this," she explained, wrinkling her nose and tilting her head back so far I thought she might fall.**

Ozai didn't laugh, of course, despite how _hilarious_ my imitation was. Instead, he found a way to glare, sulk, and pout all at once.

"He's my brother. Fire Lord Azulon is my father."

He said this with pride, puffing up his chest and standing straighter than I thought possible, clearly not anticipating the reaction he would receive.

**Inexplicably, Ursa found this to be more humorous than anything else.**

"**No, he's noot!" she denied through her uncontrollable mirth.**

"**He is too!" I insisted, angry and letting it show.**

"**But... the Fire Lord's too old to be your daddy!"**

I had no right to laugh. My father was even older than his, but he looked so young I couldn't tell.

** Had I understood where children came from, I would've leaped at the chance to correct her, but all I could do was shrug in my own confusion. At sixty-seven years old, my father was old enough to be my great-grandfather. At thirty-one, my brother was old enough to be my father.**

The short man had almost reached us when he asked, "Prince Ozai, who's this?"

"Ursa," he said while I mentally rehearsed my curtsy. "She's my..."

He cut himself off and looked to me for permission. This deferential glance dumbfounded the elder prince into slackening his jaw and widening his eyes into saucers—if only for a few seconds.

**I took her tiny smile as encouragement, and ended the sentence with "friend."**

Iroh had never seen his younger brother bend to the will of another unless it served him as student, son, etc. Ozai had witnessed the consequences dealt to those who questioned his father or firebending master and never repeated their mistakes. He followed Iroh's "recommendations" out of habit more than anything else, but he always manipulated his way out of unappealing tasks.

"It is an honor to meet you, Lady Ursa," he complimented with a bow—every inch the diplomat.

** Ursa curtsied back, transforming into the perfect little noblewoman with a soft smile and lowered chin.**

"The honor is mine, Crown Prince Iroh," I replied in the way my mother had trained me, relieved that I remembered his name. "I thank you for…"

**She pouted, shattering the illusion as she failed to remember the next few words. Her expression made it impossible for my brother to suppress a chuckle.**

"**I am sure y****ou are very welcome, my lady."**

"**Ursa's not a lady," I informed him. "Her mother's not dead."**

"**Every woman is a lady, Ozai."**

"**Ursa's not a woman," I adjusted. "She's a girl."**

**The "girl" scowled at me, and Iroh let loose several chortles.**

"**And what has my rude little brother been up to, Lady Ursa?"**

"**Nothing!" I protested before she could answer. "I was going to teach her—"**

"**He was going to burn the turtle ducks, but I saved them. He fed them with me, but then a mommy turtle duck—"**

"**We want to play by ourselves now," I declared, offering my hand out for her to take.**

**She was still focused on Iroh, and my eyebrow twitched out of envy.**

"**He wants to teach me how to firebend," she explained, glancing towards me and knocking the flame out of me. "I told him I can't, but he doesn't believe me."**

** I was so ashamed of my jealousy that I almost felt like **_**blushing**_** for a moment; the realization made me sneer again.**

Iroh examined me with a gentle-yet-critical eye, kneeling down to my height. After completing the evaluation, he expressed confusion as well.

"**You certainly have the eyes of a bender, my dear. Are you quite certain you cannot?"**

**She ignored the question, eyes glued to me. **

"**Can we play tag instead?"**

"**O-okay…" I agreed the instant she took my hand.**

Iroh's jaw dropped enough for us to see his tongue.

"You can go now," Ozai informed him happily, starting to lead me away.

"**And you're sure that you're… all right, little brother?" the baffled prince asked with a raised eyebrow, still recovering from the shock.**

** He was so delighted that I valued another's opinion that he would do anything to aid the developing friendship, yet he was hesitant to leave us alone, afraid either that he would wake from the dream or that my temper might combust in reality.**

"**We're fine,"** **I snapped.**

** Ursa punished me for my tone with an icy-yet-scalding look that was already infamous in my mind, and I grumbled a more polite farewell as we left.**

Had we turned around, we would have seen the great Crown Prince Iroh scratching his head in disbelief.

**As my philosophical brother might say, I came to a fork in the road that day. I met with two paths for the first time and didn't realize it. I didn't realize that my life would be consumed by one or the other, that I could only straddle both for so long, that I could only change directions so many time. **

** One was my greatest love, the other my deepest lust. One called out to the good in me, to the core of who I once was. The other tempted the ambition, the refusal to be denied. Two births. Two fires. Two thirsts. For love and understanding. For power and control. One path would feed the flames with hope and passion. Devotion and conviction. Love. The other would feed the desire to have all that I wanted, to want for nothing, to be denied nothing. It would prey on my doubt and rage. Hatred and despair. It would give birth to fury, hunger, wrath, ambition... madness.**

**Fierce madness.**

**Cruel madness.**

**Hopeless madness.**

**Enough madness to overtake the unconquerable, the untamable...**

**The girl who loved turtle ducks.**

I would just like to apologize for my heavy-handed foreshadowing. Hopefully, there won't be too much more of that, I can let Ozai and Ursa be cute kids for a little while. Also, this chapter was MUCH longer than I expected it to be. Sorry. If you're wondering about the weird ages, most of them are either estimated guesses or demanded by canon. I'm treating Ozai as if he was 35 (which is pretty old considering how young he looked in Zuko Alone) when he became Fire Lord, 40 during Sozin's Comet. Iroh was definitely 64 at the time of Sozin's Comet, which makes him 24 years older than his brother, and Azulon was 95 years old when Ozai became Fire Lord, which makes him 60 at Ozai's birth. Ursa's two years younger than Ozai just for the sake of the story and because I felt like it. Her parents are ancient too because, well, they'd have to be. The creators of Avatar don't seem to like math that much.

Please leave a review, even if you hated it. I'm going to keep writing this no matter what, but if no one reviews I won't update.


	2. Friendship

The prince and I played together every day for the remainder of my family's visit. I told my mother everything, and the identity of my new friend surprised and troubled her. I'd tried to tell my father also, but she advised against that "for grown up reasons." She was too ill to accompany me to the garden each day, but she permitted my visits after being reassured by the guards.

When I tried to tell Ozai, on the last day of our trip, that I wouldn't be back, he looked confused.

"Don't you have a house in Caldera City?"

"Well, yes. But we have a house on Ember Island too, and we're going there—"

"Where are your parents?" he asked.

"Right now? Mommy's at home. I don't know where my daddy—whoa!" I gasped as he took me by the hand and pulled me towards the exit.

"Take me to her."

I agreed because I wanted them to meet—certainly not because I felt an obligation to obey him. All the tutors in the world couldn't convince me that I needed to feel that.

She sat up in her bed when she saw me, beaming and holding out her arms for a hug, and then her second guest arrived, dumbfounding her. Ozai stormed in with the confidence and bearing of a prince. Well, a child prince.

"Ursa needs to stay in Caldera City," he either announced or commanded. Perhaps both. "She needs to learn. She is my firebending pupil, and she has yet to keep a leaf from burning up. My father will make sure the gardens are open to her every day, and if you really have to go, she can stay in the palace."

There was a beat of stunned silence, and Ozai felt the need to clarify.

"I'm Fire Prince Ozai."

Just as my mother regained the ability to speak, he spun on his heel to storm out the same way he came in.

"So... can we stay?" I pleaded with all the sweetness I had.

Mom blinked twice before bursting into laughter and climbing out of bed.

"I do believe you two have either frightened or cuted all sickness out of me," she chuckled before following Ozai to see if he would like any tea.

My family postponed our trip to Ember Island for a few more weeks, staying in the estate shared with my widowed aunt's family. Stolen back by his tutor and mentor, Ozai could no longer be there every day, but he insisted on every other day. As always, the prince got his wish. And as always, my mother insisted on watching us. Once she fully recovered, she would play with and teach us.

** "Lady Ursa's Mom," as officially titled by me, would baffle me more than I ever could her. I was taken aback by her... sincerity. She was kind and generous not to flatter or serve her own interests but simply to be kind and generous. I had little experience with genuine tenderness and no experience with maternal... anything. Though she was the polite, perfect noblewoman, she didn't take my nonsense, somehow finding ways to tame me without my realizing it. Though she was elegant and regal, she often played our games with more enthusiasm than I did. Though she was gentle and somewhat elderly, I knew no one with more wisdom or strength.**

** She was the closest thing I ever had to a mother, and it would be years before I learned her first name.**

My father didn't warm up to him like she did. In all honesty, affection for the prince would never overcome his worry—assuming any such affection had ever developed. Being suspicious of royalty was part of his upbringing as Avatar Roku's youngest son. Though the Avatar's children were numerous, Fire Lords Sozin and Azulon spared them. It helped that none among them had much political or bending power to speak of, and the siblings separated themselves to avoid appearing too organized. Then again, maybe the Fire Lord separated them himself. Whatever the case, my aunts and uncles were all too aged to intimidate a mouse by the time I was born. Most of them were dead by the time I was born. Even as the youngest child, even with his birth being a miracle considering Ta Min's age, Daddy was ancient.

To assuage his fears, Colonel Iroh himself came to tea. Then, of course, the same colonel had to soothe his own father's qualms.

** Father wouldn't have noticed our friendship for months had my tutor not complained. He didn't complain directly **_**to **_**the Fire Lord, of course. Few dared such a feat, and none completed it unscathed. He'd been pleased to learn I made a new friend—female or otherwise—but displeased by her lineage. Fortunately, he didn't object. If he had, she would've been exiled from the fire nation before another word was spoken. He knew the family posed no real threat. He simply wasn't fond of the idea. Somehow or another, my favored brother convinced him that she would be good for me, that her family couldn't be more loyal, and that I'd grow tired of her soon enough. No one expected that she might grow into my bride. Neither her parents nor mine wanted her to do so. Azulon worried they might expect as much, but Iroh dismissed the idea instantly and convincingly.**

** Had the Fire Lord met the precocious five-year-old, he either would've been charmed or appalled, depending entirely on her mood. If she didn't submit to him as instructed, he would declare her an insolent disgrace. If she'd stuck exclusively to her training and submersed herself in the role, he'd think her sweet, reserved, and "respectable." If she'd been a dutiful subject that dared to speak honestly when asked a question, there was still a strong chance that the beautiful "imp" would endear herself to him by being her innocent, unabashed, and adorable self. But he did not meet her, leaving the bold, clever, and impetuous Ursa safe and unspoiled. **

**Iroh's support of Ursa was, perhaps, argued too well. The Fire Lord began to expect her family to be at court always so she would always be available to me as playmate and companion. Their Ember Island home was abandoned for most of each year, except in the summer. Our playdates were scheduled around my tutor's itinerary, except when I managed to escape and surprise her. Sometimes Ursa was pleased by this but not always.**

"Ursa!" his voice called from across the garden, stirring me not. I would not move. I would not open my eyes to glance his way.

_Breathe. Feel the sun's rays. Breathe..._

"Ursa?"

_Discipline. Patience. You must learn to let—_

"Hey, Ursa!"

"**Ozai, hush!" she scolded, glowering at me but keeping her legs crossed. "I'm trying to focus."**

**She closed her eyes again in a child's meditation.**

"On what?"he interrupted again, apparently eager to see me glare.

He sat cross-legged also, imitating me with an expression of mock seriousness.

"**None of your business. Now be quiet!"**

**He let the silence last for an extra second.**

"**Wanna see me firebend?"**

"**No, I can't play today. Now, shhh!"**

** She kept making the mistake of opening her eyes for each reply. I would talk myself hoarse to see those endless jewels.**

"**But I learned a new form today! You'll love it!"**

"**I said Shhh! I'm trying to enter the spirit world!"**

"**Oh."**

_Finally! Breathe. Focus. Pati—_

"Why would you want to do that?"

"**Ozai!" she half-screamed, eyes bugging out and brows disappearing into her hairline. "BECAUSE."**

_For one thing, the spirit world has peace and quiet._

"**That's not a reason," I protested stubbornly as I stood and walked over to her. "You get mad at me for saying 'because' all the—"**

"**Fine! If you MUST know..." Pouting, she half-grumbled and half-whispered a confession. "It's because I want to see a dragon."**

He doubled over in laughter, falling to the ground as I rose out of indignation.

"I knew you wouldn't understand! This is why I didn't want to tell you!"

After rolling around some more, the prince got all the mirth out of his system. He sat up, calm and sympathetic, while I fumed in silence.

"I understand, Ursa," he admitted, crossing over to me despite my refusal to look at him. "But you don't need to go to the spirit world to see a dragon. I can show you one."

**Her attention was won back instantly.**

"**You CAN?" she gasped in wide-eyed wonder.**

"Of course! I'm the prince. Follow me."

I did, trusting him, believing him even when I recognized the path he took, even when he came to a stop within the same unchanging garden.

A stop right before the dragon fountain.

"See!" he cried, gesturing to the sculpture before us. "The great stone water dragon!"

He laughed at me again.

"Ozaaai!" I whined with my hands on my hips and a stomping foot. "That's not funny!**"**

** Blinded by my own laughter, I didn't see her lunge. By the time I opened my eyes, her gritted teeth were already hurling towards my face, along with the rest of her body. We went flying into the water, and it was all I could do to get my head back up in time to cough the liquid filling my lungs out.**

"**Maybe that will teach you to not laugh at me," Ursa giggled as I choked and coughed and glared with all the cruelty I could muster.**

**The added fire only made her eyes light up even more.**

He dunked me down for less than half a second, afraid to hold me down any longer, and I then somehow managed to dunk him. By the time the guards found us, we were too busy splashing and cracking up to whine or accuse. Mother had to drag us out of the water herself, seeing as the guards would not disobey Ozai's command to remain where they were, but we went laughing all the way. Even as we warmed ourselves by the fireplace, giggles broke out repeatedly.

** We did have one more "fight" that day, but it was barely worth mentioning to my brother when he returned from his latest assignment.**

"**When I grow up, I'm going to marry Ursa."**

"**May I ask why, Prince Ozai?" he asked with a half-suppressed smile.**

"**Because she doesn't want to marry me," I answered as though it were all the reason in the world.**

**And, well, it was.**

"**That isn't the best motive, little brother."**

** I was fully anticipating a lecture on chivalry and romance, but Iroh cut himself off, unable to contain his amusement any longer. He left me to chortle over the idea, finding himself very much in favor of the scheme's completion solely for the irony and humor.**

Review, review, review! Doesn't have to be long! Just a sentence! Feel free to complain, ask questions, correct, etc.


	3. Ember Island

In the summer, Fire Lord Azulon allowed Ozai to vacation on Ember Island with my family. We still had to live under the constant watch of royal guards, but they became our friends and went out of their way to make my parents feel more comfortable. Hiding Ozai's identity as prince was no easy task, considering the fact he still insisted on receiving all that he wanted and tried to order other children about when I wasn't around.

Still, Ember Island was freeing to Ozai. His firebending mentor instructed him each morning at daybreak but left him alone every other hour, and the hated tutor never set foot on Ember Island. There were few servants to quake at his shadow. There were no nobles who could watch his every move and report back to the Fire Lord. He could be sad. He could be mad. He could be happy without fear of punishment. He could scream, he could cry, he could sing, and Azulon would never know or care. He felt his father's absence less, on that island, because it seemed like less of a choice on the sovereign's part. At home, his neglect was palpably obvious. At Ember, his neglect was the only possibility.

Every once in a while between his missions, Colonel Iroh would join us also, doing his utmost to amuse the boy and leave him with sweet memories. For some reason, the little prince would dread his brother's presence at home yet leap for joy when he came to the island. It was as if he thought they were two separate men: Palace Iroh and Ember Iroh. To some extent, perhaps they were. At the capital, Iroh had a thousand other duties and obligations pulling him every which way, forcing him to be the perfect prince and advise Ozai to do likewise. At the capital, Ozai would watch him put on one mask after the other, leaving the boy to wonder when he meant what he said, when it was an act, when his jokes were a front, etc. At the island, Iroh could be his easy-going, wise-cracking, and tea-loving self. He could devote all his time to playing with and teaching his brother, doing his utmost to make the prince's childhood something sweet and... healthy.

Ember Island softened his heart and turned his life into something so much happier—turned _him _into someone so much happier. It was said that just as her waves washed away footprints on the sand, the island gave everyone a clean slate, revealing your true self, breaking down your walls, and melting even the hardest of hearts.

**Those summers contained the most precious memories of my childhood.**

** The sands, the palms, the waves, the smell of the sea... They were burnt into my mind more than any set of bending forms. Each detail, each remembrance brought such intense nostalgia and yearning... Decades later, the sight—or smell—of a one feature still made me feel wistful. What I wouldn't give to relive those days. What doubt or paranoia could taint such perfection? What could be more uplifting—even in my lowest of lows? What could be more sacred than Ember Island?**

** Looking back, only one experience brought mixed feelings. Sometimes, it was as dear to me as any other isle remembrance. Sometimes, I would laugh over it until my sides split. Sometimes, I would ponder and frown over it for hours, trying to determine why it bothered me even when I knew full well.**

** It was the day Ursa saved my life.**

Ozai was nine years old when he learned to swim. At the time, there were no decent pools or beaches at the capital, and everyone assumed he'd been taught already. For the first couple vacations, even I'd assumed his pride and stubbornness alone kept him from swimming when "I don't want to" or when he decided "water is weak." He still would build sandcastles, play in shallow water, collect seashells, and play kuai ball with me so I didn't notice much. I would swim while he practiced firebending with his sifuor ran errands for my mother.

Then one day, I pleaded with him to go out in the water and was refused.

He'd never done that before. He'd dismissed my ideas before, of course. He'd annoyed me and refused me, but not when I held his gaze and requested calmly, coolly, and in a way that turned his iron will to mush.

** Iroh, visiting with us for the first time, was watching us and heard our argument. Once again, he couldn't help expressing his surprise for a half-instance; he knew how I always caved when Ursa was being... Ursa. Glancing out over the ocean in thought, it only took a few seconds before my brother struck himself upside the head and rushed over.**

** Ursa, being Ursa, figured it out a second before him.**

"**Ozai, do you know how to swim?"**

"**Do you think I'm done?" I deflected, careful not to break my vow of honesty. "Who doesn't know how to swim?"**

** Despite my scoffing, she made no sassy retort. She softened and reached out to me, gently smiling, melting away my wounded pride and attempts to defend my "honor."**

"**It's okay if you don't. My daddy never learned either. I bet Iroh would teach you, if you let him," she suggested, turning to the approaching prince.**

** Iroh started to call out to me but then thought better of it, bowing to us formally and asking if he might "have the honor" of teaching me to swim.**

** I grunted my reluctant acquiescence because Ursa's eyes shone their encouragement so brightly, irresistibly. **

With my presence to prevent him from resisting, Ozai learned to float and blow bubbles in a few short minutes. As with everything else, swimming came easily to the prince. It helped, of course, that the waves were almost nonexistent. It also helped that Iroh sought to reassure him that each person learned how at different paces, that he himself couldn't stroke properly for weeks. Ever eager to best his brother in everything he could, Ozai was swimming like a koi fish in under an hour.

**Iroh chuckled as I swam after Ursa to return her massive splash, reminding us to stay close to shore and knowing how reckless my pride could be. She nodded, and I ignored him, but before he could say another word, a messenger called out his name and ran towards us, letter in hand.**

"_Out_," Iroh ordered with a kind-yet-firm authority, and we obeyed. "Stay on shore," he said, crossing the sand to meet the young soldier while Ozai and I played tag.

After giving the message a stern frown for several seconds, Iroh told us that he had to leave immediately, leaving the terrified messenger to watch over us. I waved farewell to the supposedly future Fire Lord, and in my distraction, I was bumped by Ozai.

"You're it!" he declared before bolting for the water.

"Iroh said we—"

"Does that mean you give up? I thought you never quit!" he taunted, knowing we were equally stubborn.

After all, we'd been playing the same game of tag for years. Neither one of us was willing to lose so we'd been taking some very long "breaks" that lasted until one of us remembered who was it.

**She ran in after me, and I swam further out to evade her reach.**

"**P-p-prince O-z-zai..." the messenger stammered so faintly I almost couldn't hear him over the waves, which were growing more powerful by the minute.**

"**Come and get me, Ursa! Don't be a scaredy-cat!"**

"**Ozai, the water's too deep! You could get caught in a riptide!"**

**I couldn't help but laugh at her concern, sincere as it was.**

"**A rip-what? Don't be silly! I'm too strong to be in—"**

"**Being strong and being a strong swimmer is not the same thing!"**

"**Prince Ozai, please!" the messenger called, walking into the water. "Come back! I can't swim!"**

He practically cackled at the man's plea.

"What kind of soldier—umph!" the prince cried as the ocean pulled him out.

"Don't fight it, Ozai!" I warned, stroking in a panic. "I'll come get you!"

He _did _fight it, of course. He was Ozai. That's what he always did. That's all he knew. Surrender was never an option. It went against everything in his nature. He struggled and splashed against the rip until it sent him spiraling underwater. I screamed at the top of my lungs and kicked with every cell in my body.

**I wasn't under the water long before her touch stilled my mad frenzy and cooled my boiling blood. I went limp and floated to the surface under her guide, coughing and sputtering salt as she whispered in my ear.**

"**Swim this way. With me."**

** Obeying blindly, trusting her more than the rising sun, I swam parallel to the shore as she did, breathing in fresh air and flowing with the current. I couldn't see her well with my eyes stinging so, but her touch never left me. And in a few dozen yards, we were free.**

"**That was... fun," I joked only to receive a glare and a punch as we swam for the beach, which held the messenger sobbing in relief.**

"**You're welcome, by the way," Ursa sighed as we collapsed on the sand.**

His only response was to frown, deeply disturbed by something, looking at me as though I were some impossibly obstacle in his path.

"What?" I asked in confusion.

"How am I...? How am I supposed to...?"

**I wanted to repay her, but I couldn't. She had saved **_**my life**_**. Without her, I'd be dead. Nothing could erase a debt like that. Nothing could place us on equal footing again. Everything I did, everything my life was from then on, was because of her alone. I'd always prided myself in my independence. I was a prince. I was strong. Indestructible. But I owed her everything. Even if I someday had the chance to save her life, she saved me first. She wouldn't want thanks. She wouldn't want me to feel this burden of obligation, but I did. Nothing could change that.**

** She was no longer my equal.**

** She was my savior.**

** And someday, I would be her betrayer.**

"**Let's go home," she encouraged with that soft smile of innocence and friendship, amber eyes alight.**

** With one look, she could cast off my every worry and care. With one touch, her small lifted my spirits to a plane of true freedom.**

"**Thank you," I muttered under my breath as we walked back hand-in-hand.**

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

So much for no heavy-handed foreshadowing. R&R please! I appreciate feedback SO much!


	4. Snippets of Childhood

These are some random scenes from their childhood together.

"**This is boring," I complained in a whisper. "A****nd these peasant clothes are really scratchy."**

"**Hush!" she warned, eyes glued to the stage.**

"**Last year's was better. The new costumes-"**

"**Shh!" the ten-year-old Ursa silenced me again but with far more force. **

** She met my eyes with a ferocity that had me shrink back and slink down in my seat.**

_**Sorry.**_

** What did I expect? Nothing got between Ursa and **_**Love Amongst the Dragons**_**. It was her favorite play of all time, and back then the Ember Island players were actually great. Though I'd never admit it aloud, I loved the performance as well. It was, without fail, one of the highlights of my summers, but even more than I loved the play, I loved how **_**she **_**loved it. She delighted in every aspect, her eyes blazing with the fire I cherished above all else. The characters, story, sets, costumes, special effects, dialogue... I **_**really**_** liked it, but she half-lived for it. Ursa insisted that there was never a better story ever written. None more romantic. None more touching or powerful. None with wittier dialogue or funnier jokes. None more thrilling and mesmerizing.**

** None so likely to fall from its high pedestal.**

"Ozai, stop burning my hair!" I reprimanded only to receive a barely-perceptible smirk.

"Why, Ursa, I'm hurt! You know sifu forbade me from using fire in front of a nonbender."

It was true. For all our training sessions,I never saw him control actual flame. He merely demonstrated the forms and had me repeat them until he was satisfied. He never broke his mentor's rules, genuinely respecting the man.

"Uh huh. But you can make smoke and embers, hm?"

The eleven-year-old did not reply, but I could practically read his thoughts. "Actually, it was a bit of electricity."

"**I can burn your hair too," she reminded me with a spark of mischief in her eyes. "I****t's called a candle."**

** I stopped burning it, but I'd never stop pulling it. Then again, she never stopped yanking mine right back. Iroh and my tutors explained, "T****hat's just how women are."**

"It's not going to work, Ozai," I sighed, only encouraging him. "If I could firebend, you would be little more than a burnt crisp by now," I pointed out to Crown Prince Iroh's great amusement.

But certainly not his.

"Very well. I _won't_ show you the new form,he said with that adorable pout of a scowl.

**She rolled her eyes.**

"Oooh, I'm soooo disappointed. I don't even get to see you firebend. I might as well show you the latest dance I learned."

He was horrified.

"Dancing and firebending forms are not..."

** I trailed off as she began the sweeping, driven movements that were, indeed, very much like firebending. Even then, she could convey more force and grace than most benders. Each move somehow made bending forms more fluid and effortless, each move simply an extension of the previous. They were swift yet slow, warm yet cool, passionate yet controlled.**

I grinned when he admitted they were similar,confessing that they had been inspired directly by firebending forms.

"Speaking of which...he switched subjects, breaking out in his own stances and urging me to copy him until we could do them simultaneously.

**I quit mentoring her about the time she turned ten, though I always refused to admit that I was wrong about her being a firebender. At times, I would consider it to be her deepest imperfection. I thought she would be c****omplete with bending. She could understand me fully and meet with me on a level... Then again, I would be grateful for that. She**** would've been flawless with firebending, and that would've driven me mad. And with our stubborn, competitive tempers, we'd never stop trying to best each other, and we'd never stop getting hurt.**

**Besides, a prince of the fire nation hadn't married a bender in centuries.**

"You shocked me again," I whined to the ten-year-old as the shorter strands of his long hair began to stand on end from the static.

He chuckled, smiling wide enough to show teeth.

"NOW you smile? You never smile!

He made no attempt to deny it; we both knew it was true. With each passing year, I would become more shy around strangers, and Ozai would become more stoic and reserved, especially after Fire Lord Azulon assigned even more tutors to educate him. Though he would do his best to remove the masks when he was with me, the prince couldn't help but soak up their cynical, mercenary lessons day after day. Even his sifu, the only man whom he both sincerely respected and wouldn't always be inferior to, was jaded and dark. Almost everyone Ozai spent time with was either disdainful or sycophantic.

"**Smiling is weakness A prince of the Fire Nation never shows weakness,I recited by rote, tearing at some of our garden's grass. **

"**That's just silly.**

"**It's true," I shrugged, repeating the words of my father and my tutors. "A prince of the Fire Nation never shows emotion but to serve his own purposes.**

"**A prince of the Fire Nation never has fun. Where's the purpose in that?"**

**"I can have fun! OW!"**

**"OZAI," Ursa reprimanded, leaping back from the static.**

"I can't help it! You brush too hard!" he defended before crossing his arms and pouting as I smoothed down the locks and braided them. "I still don't understand why you can't practice on your dolls."

"I still don't understand why you can't control lightning better. And I told you. Real hair is different. Yours is so much more... I wish I had it."

"Brown looks better on you. Black would make you too pale."

"It doesn't make you look too pale."

"No other boy in the whole Fire Nation would be caught dead wearing braids!"

"Don't be a baby. It'll just take a minute."

"One minute is still too long. I'll look like some Water Tribe or Earth Kingdom-"

"Trust me."

"**A prince of the Fire Nation trusts no one," I continued to quote. "T****rust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way to achieve-"**

"**You trust me, don't you?**

**I answered instinctively and without thought, surprised by how much I meant it.**

"Yes. Always.

"Good. Then shut up and let me-Do you hear that?"

**She was up and walking before I could reply. I followed her towards the next part of the garden, but she jerked me behind a corner before I could enter.**

**"Winter, spring, summer and fall..." a familiar voice sung while stringing his liuqin to his future wife.**

Colonel Iroh was courting a distant cousin of my mother's, twelve years his junior. Her name was Lu Sen, and she had porcelain skin, obsidian curls, and impossibly blue eyes unlike any I'd ever seen. She was beautiful by any definition, but I loved her for her deep compassion and unfailing ability to see the very best in people. Sen was the sweetest woman I would ever know, and she was far wiser than anyone would expect. At the surface, she seemed to nave and clueless, but no one could be less blind. It took a woman of great perception to match wits with Iroh and even convict him about his mistakes.

And it took a woman of the purest heart to capture his.

"Winter, spring," the prince continued, delighting his future bride and fellow music-lover. "Summer and fall! Four seasons, fo-o-our loves..."

"Isn't she so beautiful?" I sighed a child's compliment.

Ozai shrugged.

"**She looks like a ceramic doll," I commented, unable to suppress a sneer that, thankfully, went unnoticed by Ursa.**

"**I know!"**

"**You say that like it's a good thing."**

"Four seasons, fo-o-or love..."

**By the time she turned to me, my expression was blank.**

"**It isn't?"**

He shrugged and pretended to be distracted by the grass again.

"Ceramic cracks. And she looks like Iroh could break her by breathing too hard."

"Iroh can breathe fire. That'd break anyone," I snapped back with a frown, unable to deny how fragile the woman was.

**Despite her youth, Lady Sen was far from healthy. The fair, so-widely-admired complexion resulted from the weakest of constitutions and a lifetime of chronic illness. Her diet consisted of little more than rice, fish, dried fruit, and tea. Her stamina was almost nonexistent. For all her patience, Sen could never stand or walk for long without feeling faint. However much she might insist that she was "f****ine," too much light brought her intense headaches that made even **_**her **_**cross****. A third of her year was spent coughing or sneezing, m****ore often than not confined to her bed with a fever, a****nd another third was spent catching or recovering from colds, flus, etc.**

"Why don't you like her?"

"She blushes too much. I hate when girls blush. It's..."

"If you say weak one more time..." I warned in irritation.

"Meek. And she never does anything. She's always tired or coughing or sneezing or making tea."

As much as she adored children and their games, Sen couldn't even play dolls without fatiguing rapidly. This irked Ozai to no end for he, of course, preferred games that demanded far more exertion. She desperately wanted to bond with the little prince, but forming any sort of connection with him was difficult even when he would play with you.

** Lady Sen applauded Iroh's song and blushed****蓉****gh-at whatever he said next, looking away because she couldn't bear the weight of his gaze.**

We didn't hide fast enough.

**Sen tilted her head in confusion before hiding a grin with her hand, giggling to Iroh as Ozai and I came into the open and presented ourselves "p****roperly."**

"Lady Ursa! Prince Ozai!" my brother greeted us with a grin so broad I couldn't help but be suspicious. "I love your braids!"

From the tip of his toes to the roots of his hair, Prince Ozai of the Fire Nation _blushed_.

So much for childhood! Now on to some pre-teen/teen years full of sorrow...


	5. Unlucky Thirteen Part 1

"_Many things that seem threatening in the dark become welcoming when we shine a light on them."_

—Iroh

The first time I saw Ozai firebend, it was to bully another person.

To mortify.

To terrorize.

** That summer, Azulon forbade me from going to Ember Island. He claimed I had too many "duties to attend to." Despite Ursa's initial protests, I convinced her to go with her family through much prodding and insisting. Because of my thirteenth birthday, she returned a month early, seeking to surprise me while I was the one to stun her.**

For once, the prince wasn't in his palace. He wasn't in the villa. He was wandering the streets of Caldera City, leaving his crown at home. He never told me why. Perhaps he sought a friend. Perhaps he expected to see a performance; he rarely visite the city but to attend the Fire Days Festival.

He was probably just bored, looking for something to do. I was the only playmate of the restless boy who escaped his tutors and guards with ease.

None of his family members were there to distract him. Fire Lord Azulon was, well, being the Fire Lord. Princess Lu Sen was accompanying her husband—then General Iroh—on his latest campaign, but he would've avoided her even if she had been there. Playing with her inevitably meant exhausting her, which inevitably meant a fierce reprimand from her protective, lecturing Iroh. Ozai resented his sister-in-law because of this and because she detracted attention from himself. If it was anyone else, I would've scorned such petty jealousy, but Ozai I understood. He saw Iroh so rarely and, though he'd never confess to it, admired him so highly. Every moment spent with his brotherwasprecious—even adored—but not when the crown prince was so enraptured with Sen he didn't hear a word his brother said. They'd been married since I was nine, but their love for one another increased with each passing day.

So Ozai meandered alone. And somewhere along the way, he stumbled upon a boy being mocked by three of his "betters." A servant for one of the noble families, the confused nonbender struggled to ignore the others' taunts. In his hury to escape and finish his errand, he ran straight into the prince's chest.

He acted out, annoyed by the peasant's stuttering apology and egged on by the boys cries of "Insolence! Dishonor! Are you gonna let him get away with that?"And I found Ozai—my Ozai—shooting flames at a boy in an alley way, cheered on by stuck-up tyrants.

At a nonbender like me.

At a boy my age.

At a boy who did NOT deserve to shove his own face into a garbage-filled gutter just to prevent his back from being singed.

I was too horrified to speak for a few seconds. I could only listen to the other boys laugh and taunt, encouraging the ridicule. I could only watch as an unrecognizable expression tugged at my best friend's lips.

It was far from the first time I saw Ozai smirk. He'd mastered the infuriating-yet-gorgeous, almost unnoticeable lip curl by age seven. It wasn't a half-smirk. It was barely even a fourth-of-a-smirk, but it had always managed to light up his golden eyes even more, and that was all that mattered to me. This new smirk however, disturbed me.

The old one had been cocky, as it always would be, but it wasn't half so conceited as the new. It had never been enterprising or manipulative. It delighted in knowledge and reassurance but not in someone's pain. It had made those gold orbs bright and warm—not fierce or scorching. It had revealed his happiness. His sensitivity and soul.

This new fourth-smirk revealed only darkness.

It turned the fire in his eyes into something vicious and cruel. Something savage and burning cold. Something with more scorn and contempt than I knew possible for anyone, least of all my Ozai.

**"Bully," a faint voice seemed to whisper, but it couldn't be real. It had to be a twisted memory. Her voice could never be so... broken. So ****horrified.**** So disappointed in, ashamed of, and... repelled by—**

"**OZAI, STOP!" Ursa screamed, extinguishing all the fire I had in an instant.**

** I turned around to have my heart pierced by her gaze. I could feel my chest rip apart and bleed.**

** Repelled by me. She was repelled... by **_**me. **_**Her glare was more than an accusation. It was a conviction. It was a sentence.**

**It was condemnation.**

"**LOOK at him, Ozai," she ordered so I did.**

** And for once, I didn't see what my tutors would have—what my father would have. I didn't see weakness in the peasant's wide, teary eyes. I saw his pain, his fear and confusion... **

**And I felt it. **

**I empathized with a nonbending peasant.**

Iroh never knew his brother to regret anything, but I knew. And I knew he never regretted anything so immediately as he did that day.

Ozai responded in the only way he knew how. Princes of the Fire Nation did not apologize. They did not regret. Their words—their wills—were final. They never admitted their mistakes. They stood by their actions and accepted the consequences.

** I glared right back, fists clenched, and began to defend myself.**

"**He—!"**

"**Is a human **_**being**_**," she replied as though we did not grow up in a world torn by war.**

While others looked into those golden orbs and saw anger, I saw sadness. While they saw cruelty and hatred, I saw desperation. Insecurity. Loneliness.

I saw crippling fear.

Not fear of punishment. Not fear of pain or failure. Not even fear of abandonment really.

Fear of himself.

Fear of what he could do to others.

Fear of who—of what he could become**.**

**One of the other boys, foolishly, addressed her.**

"**Listen, girl—"**

** Indignation vaporized all her shyness, and it took one lethal, infamous look from her to make all three nobles gulp and flee to save their own skins, assuming the intensity of her amber flames would beget real ones.**

**I couldn't blame them. I assumed the same thing.**

As they bolted, I rushed to the servant boy, helping him to stand and wipe off the gutter grime. Save for some scratches, he was unharmed. Still confused and afraid, his babbling repeatedly alternated from apologizes to thanks and back again. My smile silenced him, and I turned to face his tormentor.

**I stood there** **like the fool I was, dumbfounded as to what to do, feeling almost...**

"**Oh," she mocked in bitterness, holding the boy's hand. "Happy birthday, your highness."**

He visibly winced.

** Sending the boy on his way, Ursa stormed off towards her family home, fuming more than ever before. Despite my anticipation of steam blowing out of her ears, I chased after her and opened my stupid mouth yet again.**

He wouldn't get out one syllable.

"Have you no honor?" I asked without it being a question, undoubtedly sounding like a righteously angered Iroh. "He is unarmed, untrained... powerless! He is Fire Nation. One o your own people! He is your subject, whom you are bound to protect. You are his _prince_."

**Coming to halt, she spun on me to glower more properly, leaning forward with hands on her hips.**

** Ursa had always been tall for her age and, for most of our childhood, came to about my height. Give or take an inch. For the first time, my eye-line was at least two inches higher than hers, yet she'd never seemed taller. She'd never seemed more my equal—or more my superior.**

**Yet there was a great pain in her blazing gems. There was a crushing sorrow that asked, "How can you be so cruel? You? My prince. My Ozai."**

"I know. Ursa, I'm..." he trailed off, unable to say it.

I blinked as I realized he'd never said it. In the seven years I'd known him, Ozai never once apologized. His eyes had. Our eyes always said what we could not. Whenever he really irked or upset me, the prince's eyes apologized so deeply I never noticed his mouth hadn't.

"Say it," I demanded, more out of awe than anger.

He bit his lip and clenched his fists, refusing to meet my gaze, everything in him fighting against the words.

His hesitation made me storm off again.

"**Ursa, wait!" I cried, and she did, refusing to turn around.**

** I took a deep breath before walking up to her and letting everything else fade away. For a few moments, I let go of my pride, of my pain, of my bitterness and insecurity, of my need for power and certainty.**

"I was wrong," he surprised me with another confession he'd never made.

When I spun around to express that surprise, I was so shocked that my already raised eyebrows shot up past my hairline and into the sky.

My prince—my proud, arrogant prince—bowed before me with enough humility to make General Iroh blush.

"**I'm sorry. Please forgive me."**

_Did he just say please? He never says that unless I make him._

After several minutes of stunned silence, I managed to stop blinking and reply.

"I'm not the one you should be asking..." I trailed off as he tried to avoid my gaze, blinking rapidly, almost as if he was fighting back—

"I would ask him, but I don't know where..." Ozai looked up with tears shining in his golden eyes. "Please forgive me, Ursa. I know I'm a monster—"

"**You are NOT a monster," she insisted, defending me with just as much force as she had defended the peasant boy. **

I knelt down to his level and gave the stiff prince a squeezing hug. Just as he began to melt into the embrace, I broke it.

"**You **_**can**_** be a jerk sometimes though," she confessed, only half-joking.**

** Mischief sparked in her amber eyes, and my heart soared to feel their warmth again. I should've been wary, but I was too—**

"**You're it!" she cried, punching my arm and running for it, laughing as I growled and raced after her.**

** It would be the last game we ever played as children, and the last game Ursa would ever play while she still had a mother.**


	6. Unlucky Thirteen Part 2

I was eleven years old when my mother died and my father shunned my presence, refusing to look at me, refusing to see her in me.

** The spirits knew how much I had missed Ursa that summer. The Fire Lord had finally started to take an interest in me. With both Iroh and Sen gone and the war neither too busy or too still, "Father" spoke to more than he had in years. He didn't smile at me, of course. He didn't laugh, even when my comments split his guards' sides. Azulon looked at me the same, calculating, cold, unforgiving of any failure. He would demand perfection from me while my brother the golden boy could do no wrong.**

** To be under the scrutiny of Azulon was more draining than an y other burden I knew. I'd rather spend five hours pretending to be indoctrinated by my tutors than five minutes alone with my father. More accurately, I'd rather spend five **_**years **_**with them instead of him. But with everyone who loved me gone, there was no one to lighten the burden until her return.**

** I couldn't imagine the burden she would need lightened, and I certainly didn't know how to do so.**

Mom was not a young woman, but Dad was so much older we'd always assumed he'd be the first to pass on. Every time _he_ coughed or sneezed, we rushed to get him tea, citrus fruits, and an apothecary. We were all so focused on him that, when mother's sea sickness didn't seem to go away on shore, we didn't worry until it was too late. Even when she realized how serious her condition was, she did everything in her power to keep me in the dark, to downplay its gravity and urge me out of the house. She couldn't bear the thought of my pain so she put off telling me and put off telling me until...

**The messenger came for her while I was bending for Ursa, shooting off flames, lightning, and coming through on my long over-due promise to show her a dragon that breathed fire. Coincidentally, the dragon was also **_**made **_**of fire, but that delighted her all the more.**

Ozai's sifu decided that, at thirteen, the prince could finally be trusted to firebend in the presence of nonbenders. It helped that the pupil had mastered every firebending form, could control a blaze of any size, and had an ever-increasing power that already rivaled his mentor's.

I'd seen many firebenders before, but none like Ozai.

There were benders fueled by emotion—by rage—that moved with raw strength and brute force, sometimes purposeful and controlled, sometimes not, but their might was fierce and overwhelming, ruthless, intense, all-consuming and untamable to all but one. Their emotions began the bending, and only their emotions ended it.

Then there were benders who seemed emotionless, fueled by nothing but their stoic drive, unnaturally imperturbable yet fully at peace, choosing lethal precision over heat or size, creating lightning with their eyes alone. Their discipline began the bending, and only their discipline ended it. Still, their self-control always cracked eventually. No one could tame every emotion, much less suppress them all. When their emotions drove the bending, heat and power amplified, but they made mistakes.

There were also benders who performed, who controlled or lost control for the illusion, the drama, the majesty, but bending and working for the beauty of flame itself. Their art began the bending, and only their art ended it.

There were benders who barely knew what they were doing, restless and confused, grateful for any flame produced, but they were so absorbed in remembering every move that they focused on muscle instead of breath. Their training began the bending, and only their training ended it. Oftentimes, these benders would gain more confidence and control eventually, but they rarely made the flames their own. They rarely understood the truth, the essence of their element. They mastered the forms but not the flames.

The greatest benders I knew were fueled by life, masters totally at peace inside and out, their fires part of their very existence, extensions of themselves. Their souls began the bending, and only their souls ended it.

Ozai, however, fit none of these descriptions. In fact, he seemed to incorporate, blend, or abandon each and every technique, depending on the move, and he did it all with an ease that... that was simply incomprehensible. The _effortlessness... _For all the heat and flame, he didn't break a sweat. Even forms that demanded the use of every limb were executed like a flick of the wrist. Compared to the involuntary way Ozai could bend the most advanced forms, most people struggled to blink. Fire rolled off him in waves the sun would envy. He had careless power, effortless might.

And he knew it. However it may seem at first glance, his confidence wasn't nonchalant. It was too proud, too self-aware. However skilled he was, the bending wasn't all instinct. His eyes held too much determination. They were too focused, too in control.

And they burned more brightly than ever before, which was saying quite a bit.

My memory could never fully capture the impossible light of those eyes. Whenever I saw them in reality, they amazed me. It wasn't feasible for them to glow more, yet they always found a way. I'd seen those pools of molten gold sparkle with mirth, blaze in fury, flash with mischief, and shine from bliss. But this? This inferno surpassed every other, shattering my comprehension of light, color, eyes, flame... shattering everything but the sight of those jewels, melting my heart and making it burn just as fiercely.

**Ursa smiled. Ursa smiled so widely that I almost slipped up on a basic form. There were few things I wouldn't do to see that grin, to see it blaze up her amber—**

"**Lady Ursa."**

_**Ursa's not a lady. Her mom's not dead.**_

**Except she was.**

"Please, come with me."

"Why?"

He never answered.

My father wouldn't leave her bedside, and he locked me out of the room. His sister didn't know what to say.

"Ursa, your mother... your mother She... your mother was..."

Our eyes always said what we could not.

_No. No..._

"No."

_Please no._

_Please be here._

_Please, please, please._

Anything else she said went unheard. Everything went unheard but the echo of my footsteps as I ran from everything and everyone, as I ran to forget it all.

But however hard we may try, we can't run from our own memories. We can't escape reality without deluding ourselves.

We can't escape our tears.

**After scaring a servant into telling me what had happened, I found Ursa in her family's studio, knocking over candles to set the canvases aflame, burning all the paintings her mother taught her to make.**

Rivers streaming down my face, I swung wildly and brashly, numb to the heat, senseless to the smoke that threatened to suffocate me.

The only thing that made me stop was her. Her portrait. It was the last thing she ever saw me paint, and I'd been so disappointed in it. Though I loved to draw, art made me a horrific perfectionist. I was never satisfied unless my brush conveyed all that I saw or imagined. It never did, only urging me on to work more and more, exasperated by any line that fell a hair out of place.

Mother never saw the glaring flaws I did, or at least she never admitted it. She adored the painting and said she would cherish it until the day she...

I collapsed in a pool of tears, surrounded by fire that blazed with my anger, wondering if the waters of my sorrow could ever extinguish the—

The cackling vanished. The heat drew away from me, and I looked up to see my firebender sweeping in a ball of red-orange. For a second, I thought he might breathe it into his lungs, but he didn't.

"**I have everything under control," she muttered hoarsely, clutching a scrap of parchment for dear life.**

"**Is that why everything's on fire?" I retorted before shooting the flames back out to die in the air, fed by nothing, unable to touch a thing.**

**Ursa didn't respond. She didn't take her eyes off the paper so I glanced at everything that had burned.**

"**You burned all the pictures of me," I noticed aloud. **

** She was the only artist I would sit for since I was a baby; she was the only one who could bribe me to stay still through a game of hide-and-explode, or through just saying please.**

Ozai crossed over to me and knelt, staring at me until I finally let my gaze meet his eyes.

The gold had never been so dim, so wrought by heartache .

He felt it too. He understood my pain, my torment.

** And for the second time, I said the words I never said.**

"**I'm sorry."**

** And for the first time, I embraced her. I reached out to comfort another human being, and I held her. I held Ursa as she curled into a ball and wept.**

_Please come back to us._

_Come back to me._

**She sobbed onto my shoulder, and I rested my cheek on her dark curls. I was still in shock, unable to say a word, unable to fathom, unable to admit… **

**She **_**couldn't **_**be dead. The idea of Lady… no, no it was impossible. How could life leave that woman for one second? How could she truly be gone? Irreversibly, permanently gone? She was… untouchable. She was goodness, passion, spirit—life itself. She could not **_**die**_**. Such a soul could not be so vulnerable, so merely **_**physical**_**. She was too knowing, too fearless, too kind and deep and understanding for something as meager as the physical to turn off her mind, to still her heart… No, no, it could not be! I had known many soldiers who fell, but Ursa's mother… No. No. It was. not. **_**so.**_

_ I destroyed her paintings too, _I realized in horror, catching a glimpse of a paper scrap. It was once a fiery bird, but its majesty crumbled and blackened until it was nearly beyond recognition.

Nearly, but not quite.

"Do you remember the legend she told us?" I whispered, surprising him into breaking the hug. "The phoenix?"

The prince couldn't be more puzzled, but he nodded and retold the tale.

"**At the end of its life, the phoenix builds itself a nest and then ignites. Both nest and bird blaze until nothing but cinders remain. Then, a new phoenix will arise out of the ashes, reborn, invincible. The phoenix lives forever, regenerating when wounded by a foe, or letting his old age succumb to youth. Immortality is his destiny. He lives and relives. A symbol of fire, divinity, and rebirth.**"

"**By cleansing flame," she quoted, **

"**All wounds shall heal, **

"**All pain shall pass,**

"**All battles won,**

"**All problems vanquished,**

"**All heartache shall be soothed.**

"**Out of ashes, **

"**Out of torment, **

"**Be born, **

"**By fire, **

"**Into life anew."**

I had no way of knowing the effect that poem would have on the young prince, just as he had no way of knowing how wrong the words would prove to be.

Ozai hatedpoetry. Ozai hated metaphors. Yet somehow, someway, the message slipped into a hidden corner in his mind and stayed there. Those lines would claim him decades later when he lost everything else...

When he lost me.

** Silence overtook us once more, but her story made me realize how I could ease her pain in a time of such brokenness—if only for a minute. **

"**The phoenix cry is said to be a song," I reminded her before singing Ursa's favorite song. **

"**Blazing flame, rarest of all, shoots across the sky, Brightest in the fall. A comet's fire forever burns, fierce, irresistible, consuming our worlds."**

I joined in, my eyes shining in new tears of pleasure. Ordinarily, getting Ozai to sing was like pulling nails, but when he did...

Oh, when he _did_!

"**Light that breaks the darkness, bursting in the night."**

"**Nothing can compare to stolen breath at the sight," we sang together. "A comet's streak melts all concerns..."**

"Fierce, unstoppable, consuming our worlds."

"**In a flash, in a blink of an eye, the future draws near—"**

"But love can never truly die."

"**Chase the past cause in a flash—" **

"In the blink of an eye—"

"**The future draws near. The blur passes away—"**

"But love can never truly die."

"**A comet's tail yearns, fierce, irreparable, consuming our worlds. Two hearts torn apart—" **

"But we never burn out."

"**Forever bound in an endless cycle—" **

"Lost love returns. A comet's tale, passion rarest of all—"

And then we joined together once more.

"Light that breaks my darkness, brightest in the fall."

"**Blazing flame, consuming our worlds." **

"Blazing flames, brightest in the fall."

** Tears finally stung my eyes as she half-whispered the last line, her voice cracking. Reality finally sunk in.**

**Her mother was gone.**

_**Our **_**mother was gone.**

I know the song stunk so sorry about that, but I don't think the poem was half bad. Sorry for my cruel "update," but I'm a writer. When we release our work out into the world, we crave constant attention and feedback, even if it's just one word of response. So again, please review!


	7. Parted

This is a short one-more of a teaser.

** In his grief, Ursa's father took removing-painful-reminders to a new level, risking the Fire Lord's irritation by daring to ask a favor. The avatar's son begged the monarch to pardon Lady Ursa from her position as Royal Playmate that she might attend the Royal Fire Academy. In his old age, he couldn't look after or educate her the way her mother could. She would become a young woman soon and needed guidance he couldn't provide, etc. etc. None of those arguments were what convinced Azulon. It was a final, barely-mentioned suggestion he made towards the end of his request that had my ****吐****athercall for me for the first time in months.**

** For the first time in months, my ****吐****athercalled me into his presence. As usual, he only deigned to notice my existence when he thought I displayed weakness. **

** While I knelt before him, the Fire Lord barely jerked his head in a nod that allowed me to sit up. We were alone****謡****ell, alone as we could be. There wasn't a moment in my life where I, truly, was alone with my father. His guards were always there. I knew them better than I knew him. I knew strangers better than I knew him.**

** But no one knew his wrath like I did.**

"**Ozai,he acknowledged before a long pause he spent scanning me, evaluating, calculating.**

** As though I was another war tactic that might fail or succeed, as though he'd yet to determine whether I was worth the risk.**

**I'd lost track long ago of how many times Iroh had tried to comfort me throughout my childhood, to reassure me that our ****杜****isguidedfather loved me. However well the Crown Prince might argue contrary, I saw how the Fire Lord looked at me. I felt like a blight upon my family****葉****he bane of **_**his **_**existence****. I was certain that Azulon blamed me for my mother's death and that he feared I might destroy Iroh as well.**

"**I have shared my condolences with your friend's father," he continued, still staring at me for any reaction. "A****t his request, I am permitting young..." He struggled to recall her name, eyes flashing darkly once he he did. "U****rsa to attend the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. You will not be seeing her again."**

** I knew better than to show emotion. He was still watching me, still calculating. Somehow, someway, the avatar's son suggested**** that Ursa was too close to me, that our bond would strengthen if allowed to continue. And for the Fire Lord, someone with**_** any **_**pull, any bond, any influence ****on me had too much power. If I showed how much control she did have on me, she might never be seen by anyone again.**

**So while my world turned to ash, I put on the mask I loathed** **to hide the face of a man being burned alive. **

"**Yes, sir."**

"**That will be all, Ozai," he dismissed with a wave of his hand, and the guards opened the doors.**

**But the pain was too much. I had to ask. Whatever the cost, I had to dare ask...**

"**What about her summers? Might...?"**

**And because I asked, I was denied.**

**"No."** **He**** was calculating again. "E****xactly what hold does this girl have on you?"**

"**Nothing," I lied without expression, without sending off a tell. "I****t's just rare for someone to play hide-and-explode so well. Rather, it's rare for someone to not let me win."**

** The Fire Lord glared.**

"**Will that be all, Father?" I asked with all the innocence a soulless face could muster.**

"**Yes..." he trailed, rapping his fingers before completing his deliberation and dismissing me. "Y****es, that will be all."**

**I never thought of Azulon as "F****ather" again.**

I didn't blame my father for what he did. I still don't, wrong as it was. He loved me. He just didn't know how to without my mother. He loved me, but he could no longer see me. He could only see her. I was a ghost to him. She haunted him through me, and he knew he couldn't be a father to his own wife.

Of course, that didn't mean it didn't hurt. I'd lost two parents that day, and I would never get either back.

**I saw Ursa for what would be the last time in two years as she was being led out of the palace by her aunt and cousin. I meant to wave farewell from afar, but she saw the sorrow in my eyes and ran, tears filling her own.**

"**Ozaai!she cried as I bolted to her, glowering daggers to anyone trying to intervene.**

Within two seconds, I was wrapped in his arms, refusing to let go.

"I'm so sorry, Ozai. I'm so, so..."

"_You_'re sorry? Ursa, I'm-"

"Lady Ursa!" my cousin protested. "This is not."

**I silenced her in one glance.**

"I have something for you," he whispered, slipping a scroll of parchment in my hand.

"Oh, Ozai, I'm so-"

"Stop apologizing. I'll be fine."

"Promise?" I asked as the guards tried to separate us.

"Promise," he swore, trying to firebend at the man who touched my shoulder.

"**Don't," she warned with that scowl too adorable to intimidate a lamb, that scowl I would miss so terribly. "I****t's all right,Ursa sighed, breaking from the embrace and walking away. I****t's all right."**

** I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails drew blood. Once Ursa was out of sight, they let out streams of fire that reached the sky. **


	8. Separation

Even though you didn't review... *glares. I'll give you this VERY long chapter. Don't get too excited. There's not much plot, but thinks will pick up after this. Hopefully. Sorry that there are random Chinese characters. I honestly have no idea why that's happening. Again, PLEASE REVIEW.

My first few days of school would not be pleasant ones.

Having spent the rest of my summer at our Ember Island home, my heart was half-healed. While letters of love and comfort from Lu Sen and Iroh helped me, they were no substitute for the general's bear hugs and the princess's soft kisses. While I was accompanied only by servants at the beach-house, they were my dear friends who did everything to lessen my misery, when they weren't pitying me. Misery loved company even on that island, and the memory of my mother haunted every grain of sand. As cleansing as Ember Island's waters were, they could never erase her memory. They could never make me stop missing her, but they taught me how to honor her, how to live without her presence but still with her guidance.

I arrived at the academy with mixed feelings. There was a craving for new friendship, one untainted by grief, and for learning. I loved to learn, and I loved to read, but Ember Island only had so many scrolls to distract me. Part of me was desperate for a change of pace and scenery, but part of me clung to the comforts of familiarity, to the security of my past, however painful it might appear. Change was part of life, but it usually bore me ill-will. I feared change. I couldn't predict change. I liked knowing things. I liked certainty. I wasn't as insistent upon it as Ozai, but I still ached for it. Adults usually liked me because I was so concerned with being good, because I was so quiet and trusting of all authority, because I couldn't bear to disappoint them. Other children on the other hand... I'd become far too timid to talk to them. I could be open and free with those I knew well, with Ozai I never even thought of withholding something from him, but I was so cautious around others. I always had to think before I spoke or moved. The idea of approaching someone else was terrifying, much less initiating a friendship. Would the other girls like me? Would I be mocked for my shyness? For my grandfather? Where they all firebenders? Would I have privacy? Would they pelt me with questions about the royal family? Would they pity me for my mother? Would they know anything about me?

Was I asking too many questions?

"We're here," the cousin old enough to be my mother announced as the ship came to a stop.

The Royal Fire Academy for Girls covers a small island, occupied only by its teachers, students, servants, wildlife, and gardens. As a school for future noblewomen, there are few Fire Nation estates more lavish or expansive, but I was thoroughly accustomed to alabaster pillars and bronze statues, to ebony and mahogany walls, to rich velvets the color of blood, to jewel-encrusted murals and tapestries, and to gold glinting off every nook and cranny. Its appearance did not awe or frighten me in the least, but the girls running around it certainly did.

There were about eighty students, some six, some sixteen, some from the colonies, some from the continent...

All noble.

I'd never been around so many girls before. In Caldera City and on Ember Island, there were children everywhere but more were boys than girls, and there were always more parents or servants watching over them.

According to the schedule, we arrived on time, yet barely any parents remained. Most nobles had better things to do than hold their daughters' hands, instead sending servants to drop them off. Most nobles only cared that their upbringings were equal to or rivaled the upbringings of other young noblewomen, and no tutors could offer a more prestigious education than those at The Royal Fire Academy. It helped, of course, that there were no other schools exclusively for Fire Nation noblewomen, but the Academy truly had some of the greatest minds in our country.

_The_ greatest minds worked at The Royal Fire Academy for Boys.

"Choir for your musical art, yes?" my cousin asked me without really asking, marking off another box on the scroll that determined my education. I had no complaints about what she signed me up for. I was rather surprised that she knew me so well. "Dance for your theatrical art... Calligraphy, sculpting, paint, or... Oh, painting I think."

"Every nonbending pupil must take a self-defense class," the administrator reminded us with a kind smile to me.

"Must she really?my cousin sighed, shuddering at memories where I defended very aggressively. "I'd prefer she take... 'The art of tea.'"

The administrator suppressed a chuckle at my grimace.

"I assure you, madam. Tea culture and ceremony will be covered in her culture and etiquette classes. Perhaps the young Lady Ursa might study swordmanship?"

She shuddered again.

"No, no, indeed. That is not ladylike in the least. Hand-to-hand combat will do, I suppose."

The administrator swallowed back a speech on the importance of every woman knowing how to protect herself and took the completed scroll.

A servant offered to guide me to my room so my cousin made her attempt at a heartfelt farewell. Though she hadn't managed to muster genuine tears, she proceeded as though she had, giving me a flowery speech of 兎ncouragementand a stiff embrace before bowing out.

And leaving me utterly alone.

While the other girls played with their friends, I unpacked and remained in my room. I was grateful that my father's guilt paid for extra privacy, but part of me wished for roommates, if only to have someone to sit with at dinner.

Instead, I sat in the worst seat possible.

"Excuse me," a girl my age stated with an authority that startled me.

Even at that age, Li Mei had a cruel and terrible beauty. Her name meant beautiful rose, but she would come to be known by most of the students-and some of the teachers-as Ji Mei, which meant beautiful thorn. The young noblewoman would do nothing to silence these whispers, unless whispered to young noblemen. She cherished the fear and respect her nickname inspired too much.

"Yes?" I cracked out, surprised and mortified by the hoarseness of my voice.

"I know that you're new here so your transgression shall be forgiven, but that seat is reserved, as is every seat at this table. _My _table."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm so-" I apologized, frantically getting up.

She smirked at by timidity and obedience, calculating what competition I might one day pose to her and deciding whether or not I was an enemy to be kept close or closer, whether or not I should join the ranks of her paling-in-comparison, wanna-be companions.

"Perhaps, however, I might permit you, on a trial basis of course-Ah! You _brat_!" she screeched as she rose.

In my hastiness, I knocked over drink and sent a staining splash to her dress.

Her topaz eyes flashed with an icy ferocity not unlike a certain prince's.

"Do you have any idea how much this COST?"

"No," I answered honestly, unused to rhetorical questions, and even more unused to angering anyone. "But you don't need to be so mean about it."

She gaped at me, dumbfounded, and seemed prepared to burst into flames AND to strangle me.

But Li Mei was trained well, becoming calm as the ice that filled her veins and shone through in her piercing eyes.

"Who do you think you are?" she hissed. "Who are your parents?"

I told her instinctively, unused to concealing anything, and she laughed in my face.

"_You're _the Avatar's granddaughter? Roku is your...? Oh, that's too pathetic!"

Her cruelty brought tears to my eyes, thoroughly against my will.

"Ladies, please!" a woman begged while coming over. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Everything's... perfect," she declared with a burning cold gaze of scorn and superiority.

Thus began our lifelong rivalry and her lifelong hatred of me.

My first class began awkwardly as well. Our teacher asked a series of questions that reviewed the previous year, and the class answered each like a simultaneous choir. When she shifted to new questions that hadn't been covered, the class was silent and clueless.

I, however, was not.

She seemed startled by my answers, knowing that few of the oldest students could answer them, but proceeded to ask me questions that wouldn't be covered in any class.

I didn't understand what the big deal was. Having competed academically against an older prince for my entire childhood, I thought my knowledge was normal. We had countless scrolls of history, strategy, art, language, poetry, literature etc. at our disposal, and I used them to make sure Ozai never knew something that I didn't, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Whatever our age difference, whatever our heritages, I was his equal in wit and understanding. If I wasn't, he would've dismissed me for ignorance and inferiority, and it would've give him justification to be even cockier than usual.

My fellow classmates stared at me as though I'd morphed into a platypus bear but then chuckled at my inability to answer questions on fashion, charm, etiquette, and conversation. Naturally, I'd picked up the core rules of royal protocol, but there was a shocking amount that I missed out on or misunderstood. To me, they seemed all subtlety, but they were glaringly obvious to my teachers and peers.

For these questions, Li Mei took over, more than happy to name, list, explain, and demonstrate my every failing in the laws of charisma and nobility. I found myself fighting back those hated tears again as she apologized for my ignorance, blaming it on "The House of Roku" and guaranteeing that my classmates would forever shun me.

Just as I was about to cry myself to sleep that night, a servant knocked at my door to deliver the most beloveds letter I'd ever received.

Princess Lu Sen had returned to the palace and could send me scrolls that the Fire Lord would _not _have intercepted and read. Ozai and I could not exchange letters, but we could send messages through Lu Sen.

Her words, of course, warmed my heart, but I was overjoyed by the added message.

I smiled and laughed aloud at the prince's complaints, quips, and clever comments as he summarized his past few weeks. If he sought to comfort me, he had no idea how to go about it. But simply by being Ozai, he freed my soul of every burden and care and made my tears those of mirth.

I went to bed laughing, and my luck changed overnight. Familiar faces greeted me-finally!-when my first cousins once removed arrived at the Academy a day late. Before then, we only saw each other two or three times a year, but we would become inseparable.

Though they were twin sisters, Zhen and Maylin couldn't have been more different in looks or personality. Maylin was all curves, Zhen all angles.

Maylin-the younger sister-was the only person I knew who could hold a candle to Lu Sen's natural sweetness. Like the princess, she touched every heart that she came in contact with. Kindness and warmth bubbled out of her like a pure spring, oozing joy and energy. The short, pleasantly plump girl had a round, cherubic face that filled the world with light, as did her huge, rich brown eyes that filled the world with light. Her heart was too massive for her brain to do much, though she was far from stupid. Maylin was simply... feather-headed, devoting her time to romance and imagining over studying. Still, she never failed a thing in her life, though she came close whenever grace and balance were involved. Ironically enough, considering who her future daughter would be, Maylin was the worst klutz on earth.

Zhen-the elder sister-contrasted her sister in almost everything. The baby sister was all curves, Zhen all angles. Zhen towered over the both of us, more slender than bamboo no matter how much ash banana bread she ate. Her eyes were a dull, light amber, invisibly small in comparison to her sister's. While Maylin kept her brown curls short and close to her face, Zhen's lengthy, raven locks hung stick-straight to her waist. The only aspect they shared was heart, but Zhen revealed it very differently. Alhough she was thoughtful, empathetic, and selfless, she rarely expressed that-or any emotion-and could be mistaken for a statue. Propriety and perfectionism were the young scholar's life, and Zhen's reserve made the shyest version of myself seem like a wildfire. Her personality was more subtle, a gentle river of constancy and strength. She showed love through mothering and listening and being a rock of stability for others.

Opposites though they were, they understood each other perfectly. Zhen planned and reasoned for a carefree, care_less _sister that could not see the need for rationality, and Maylin giggled, comforted, and charmed for an introverted, introspective sister that could not convey her thoughts to others.

These sisters would make school not only bearable but truly enjoyable. Their friendship and love opened my eyes to all the Academy had to offer, strengthening me even when Li Mei made me weep, allowing me to glide through my tedious classes and to relish those that caught my interest.

And there _were _classes that caught my interest, holding it well past my last tests and allowing me to keep up with Ozai. The charisma, etiquette, and culture classes came with surprising ease, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes burdensome from the constant vigilance and effort they demanded. My defense, dance, and art classes were great, freeing comforts, as was choir when I wasn't put on the spot. Though I loved to sing, it took years for me to realize I did have a beautiful voice, and that my mother's compliments were not solely out of love. Even when I began to realize it, I could not sing for an audience. My throat would close up, and my voice would shake and croak like a hoarse badgerfrog quivering on one leg. Since Li Mei was in my choir, she was _always_ a witness to this and made the experience infinitely worse with one smirk or "pitying" pout. I'd avoid her gaze for a solid week after those traumas, certain that her every laugh was at me. With time and the help of my friends, I stopped caring, taking away her power and freeing me to be me.

**While Ursa found joy during our separation, I only found bitterness. My resentment towards Azulon grew exponentially. When she left, so did my mentor and tutor, replaced by a team of three scholars, a diplomat, a fire sage, a retired general, a retired admiral, and two bending experts that pulled me in hundred directions and demanded perfection in every aspect of my life all while reminding me that I was the second born. Though given the education of a future Fire Lord, I had no purpose beyond ****妬****n case of emergency.I lived in a prince's prison without the promise of a prince's power. I was the spare, never to be freed and never to be used, and my resentment . My advancement could come only with my loved one's torment. Any legacy I might leave could only begin with tragedy, either denying my brother a long life or denying Lu Sen of motherhood. **

** The latter seemed increasingly more likely.**

** Iroh was always away on one military campaign or another, spending what little leave time he had with his often bedridden wife as she struggled through illnesses and failed pregnancies. Such constant heartbreak-f****or a woman who loved so deeply-d****id nothing for her weak health. Lu Sen always dreamed of being a mother, adoring children above anything else in the world, but the longer her pregnancies lasted, the weaker she became. Secretly, Iroh was partially relieved by each miscarriage, terrified that his love wouldn't survive full term. The guilt from this relief, accompanied by his desire to be a father and knowledge of her terrible ache, pained him tenfold.**

** I'd come to love my sister-in-law, but I was incapable of cheering even her-t****he most easily pleased woman in our nation. Nothing took me so outside of my comfort zone as a sickbed, and I was already an awkward, brooding teenager. My presence could only depress her spirit so I visited rarely. That, of course, wounded her also, but I thought my acidic influence would have been worse. **

**Despite my best efforts, resentment towards Iroh grew. Even my self-pity wasn't great enough for me to resent the time he devoted to beloved Lu Sen, but I envied him. The older I became, the more obvious Azulon's favor became. Iroh came home to a hero's welcome every time, having earned the respect of everyone that wasn't already awed by his status as Crown Prince. Some part of me recognized that he'd charmed many through humility, wit, and humor, but all I saw were his military victories. They were, quite glaringly to me, the reason Iroh was so loved. Watching the Fire Lord's snobbiest advisers bow to his opinion in every war meeting irked me to no end, especially due to Azulon's dead silence on what role I would have in our fight and **_**when**_** I might have it.**

** As I aged, my relationship to Iroh tensed. I knew that Iroh had to wear and exchange many masks as Crown Prince, General, husband, brother, bender, friend, tea-maker, and man, but he did not share my hatred for them. He accepted them, and I railed against the hypocrisy, leading him to point out I wore them anyway and to put on another mask. My brother realized****葉****oo late****洋****y need for a real father-figure. His attempts to be that, to convict and guide me, came off as an affront. I had enough criticism from my tutors, and to hear more from him strained every nerve. Before my angst-ridden teen years, Iroh had been a comfort to me, someone who could make me laugh, someone I could exchange barbs with, and someone I could be myself with. That was no longer the case. **

** His shift from friend to father ordered me to conform, yet again, to someone's else mold for me. I would conform to his will, but I wouldn't make the mistake of opening up to him again. He gave me a new mask so he couldn't expect me to take it off. Iroh urged me to be an adult by treating me like a child, opening my eyes to the fact I could compete with him as an adult also.**

**And compete with him I would.**

** With the comfort of Iroh and Lu Sen denied to me, Ursa's letters were all I had left, but they too were lacking. Time flew by for a girl with such a busy, happy schedule, but she would've found a way to write more often if she knew my loneliness. Cutting off my own hand was preferable to worrying her. Instead, I tried to share in her happiness and add to it despite my own misery, which only drained me further. **

** It was easier to hide my emotions-e****ven from Ursa-i****n correspondence, but it still took effort. It helped that she was so young and that she didn't expect me to feel the scrutiny and solitude as much as I did. She knew me to dismiss almost every opinion that wasn't hers or my own. She knew me to scoff at public opinion, to ignore ever-watching eyes, and to let even the harshest criticisms (unless from Azulon) slide off my back. Even when infuriated, I was never injured. She knew me to vent and fume without dwelling or feeling burdened, but I no longer had someone to vent TO, and I wasn't half so scrutinized before she left as I was afterward.**

** When her messages come less frequently, I said nothing, unable to resent her but equally unable to keep up the facade. I made my replies less frequent in turn, writing even more rarely but needing her words so much more. Ursa had no way of knowing my desperation, and I didn't expect her to. **_**I**_** didn't even realize the strain I was under until it was too late.**

** Still, I cherished every parchment she sent, every line of ink, every sketch and painting. She didn't realize how far apart we were, but I didn't begrudge her. I knew I hadn't left her heart for one moment, and she hadn't left mine. Missing her was my constant state of being, but I found distractions that made it bearable. **

** They were not, however, distractions **_**she **_**would have chosen.**


	9. Fire Duels

** The summer I turned fifteen, Sen was closer to term than she'd ever been, much to her utter delight and Iroh's deep concern. He was optimistic but cautiously so, seeing his wife weaken with each passing day. The Fire Lord granted my brother an extended leave that he might be there for his precious wife and for the birth of his even more precious son. **

** If anything was certain to Azulon, it was that Iroh's firstborn would be a son, just as it had been for generations.**

** For once, the Fire Lord's extravagant generosity to my brother would work in my favor. I would never show the Fire Lord my joy anymore than Iroh would show Sen his worry, but Lu Sen's request delighted me.**

** Azulon allowed his daughter-in-law to send for Lady Ursa, probably forgetting who the girl was entirely. Lu Sen wanted her so Lu Sen would have her. Everything possible was to be done to please the princess. The Fire Lord would promise that woman half the nation if he thought it would guarantee him a grandson.**

** Then again, I would've rewarded that woman with half the nation if she could bring Ursa back, and my soul sang when she did. **

Having returned a day earlier than expected, there was no one to greet me upon my arrival. I was halfway to the Royal Villa before I came across a familiar face. My servant friend Suzu embraced me warmly but had little time to speak, assuring me that Princess Lu Sen was still on bed rest, as she had been for months.

I visited her highness just as her barely-still-taller-than-me husband did. Iroh served tea to his wife each day, pleading with her to finally confess her favorite flavor, serenading her with his "beautifully broken" voice, and writing poem after poem to her. When she had the strength, Sen would sing Leaves From the Vine to her own precious "soldier boy" pet name never failed to make Iroh chuckle, just as her pet name of "my lotus flower" never failed to make her smile, even on her weakest of days.

After an hour of reminiscing, Sen urged me to leave and find Ozai on his tutor-free day. She insisted that her stuffy bedside was no place for a free-spirited young lady. I tried to protest, but there was no arguing with those impossibly blue eyes, guaranteed to strike unbearable guilt into the hardest of hearts. I left her with a kiss to her forehead and her bulging belly.

"Where is he?" I asked halfway out the door.

"Sparring probably," she replied absently. "Or watching his friends spar."

"_Sparring_?" I repeated, re-entering the room and swallowing back the urge to repeat the even more surprising "friends."

"Well, no one dares spare him unless unaware of the prince's identity, or unless Ozai commands him out of boredom."

I couldn't even picture him sparring.

_He is fifteen now, I suppose. Nearly grown up. How strange._

Ozai had grown indeed. Taking after Azulon's height, he was a slight giant with somewhat lanky-but well-toned-limbs. His hair was even longer than before, falling to cover half his back, but it was just as lustrous and straight. I almost envied those locks. His fair, perfect face had changed little. His cheekbones were higher and sharper, making the deadly concentration of his gaze all the more lethal, and all the more heart-melting.

Oh, those eyes! Those eyes of burning, piercing, soul-penetrating honey! I could never fully realize how much I missed them, how much my memory failed to capture them, until I was in their presence once more.

And I could never realize how cruel they could be until they sparked at someone's pain.

The Fire Prince was watching three other teenaged boys duel in the Agni Kai chamber. They fought to amuse Ozai and prove they weren't "cowards" or "weaklings." Fortunately, it wasn't a real Agni Kai, and no killing was intended or allowed. Their feared Ozai's irritation more than they feared being declared weak, and death certainly seemed to annoy him. The goal was to knock one's opponent off the platform rather than to burn him, and the boys were careful to go no further.

Ozai had his soulless, neutral mask on, except when one of the boys fell flat on his face to avoid the flames, then the heartlessness changed into heartless laughter and mockery.

"Unfair! He turned around before the gong-"

"Stop whining, Zenjiro," my best friend ordered after conquering his pitiless mirth. "It's pathetic. All's fair in war. The enemy has no honor. Why should we? Your turn Chan."

"Doesn't seem fair," the arrogant boy replied, flexing as he rose from his seat next to the prince. "He'll be crushed by me."

"Oh really?" he taunted, letting that horrible spark ruin his eyes again. "Well, in that case..." He rose and stepped onto the platform, much to young Chan's terror. "Why not fight me?"

"But, Fire Prince Ozai, you're... Fire Prince Ozai!" the older boy stammered.

"Which is why you'll all be fighting me," he replied nonchalantly.

At first, Chan seemed relieved, but then he glanced at the other boys to share in their concern. Fearsome as Ozai was, they were confident in their combined ability to defeat him and didn't know what kind of loser he was.

Even that simple certainty enraged Ozai's eyebrow into twitching, but then he let loose a quarter-smirk that should've sent his young victims flying.

If only they knew.

They faced off, and the Fire Prince seemed nearly omniscient, aware of every sight and sound and scent.

Except me.

When Ozai could bend, he could forget everything else. He was free. He was independent and joyful and... himself. Firebending-like nothing else could-allowed him to access the deepest, truest core of his self. Even when he didn't know himself, even when he forgot what was and wasn't a mask, bending revealed the truth. It burned away the lies, the facades... It left Ozai at his rawest, purest form without making him feel vulnerable. Exposed and honest as he may be, no one else realized it. No one else felt it. No one except me. For the millionth time, I longed to bend. For the millionth time, I wished to feel what he felt, to be free and independent and... my truest self.

In awe, I watched him bend better than anyone I'd ever seen, effortlessly powerful and wholeheartedly relentless. And in awe, I stepped out of the shadows as the prince spun in around in a wave of fire.

_**She's back.**_

**From the moment I met her, I knew Ursa was the prettiest girl on earth and would've incinerated anyone who said otherwise. Despite this, I took the fact for granted. My childhood was so lavish and opulent that perfection was the norm. Everything around me was kept beautiful so every flaw disgusted me, even in others. Her appearance that lacked any imperfection did not awe me as a child. It simply made it acceptable for me to spend time with her, it made looking at her day after day bearable. If I found a flaw in her, my obsession over it would've driven me mad, would've turned her into a grotesque caricature that I couldn't bear to look at. **

**But I never found one.**

_**She's BACK.**_

**And for the first time, her perfection left me dumbstruck. Possibly because of the years apart. Possibly because of the years spent with very imperfect faces.**

**Possibly because...**

Ozai grinned.

The mask cracked. The cynical instructors' words fell on deaf ears. His suppression of all sympathizing emotions failed.

For all his years of training, Ozai grinned.

At me.

_**Maybe I should stop toying with my opponents. Ursa will figure out I'm just showing off.**_

**I sent them flying in one move.**

**All right so it was in half a move, but even I thought that sounded pretentious.**

While his supposed friends crashed into the stands, Ozai crossed over to me with an ear-to-ear smile that almost made me ignore what came next.

Almost.

** More crashes sounded from the stands, and I turned to see Zenjiro slide down row after row of seats. Flail as he might, he landed on his rear for each brief, painful step.**

And Ozai cracked up, ruining the light in his eyes .

"_Ozai_," I growled and glowered so fiercely that I forgot to resent our unbearable height difference, and he forgot to be shocked over my smallness.

He actually gulped when I glared in his face, taking a step back and flashing that infuriatingly-gorgeous grin again. Meanwhile, the other boys filed in around him, flanking him like the future soldiers they were and staring at me like I posed a threat to national security.

_Or like I have cooties. It's hard to tell the difference with them._

"Ursa," was his form of greeting, doing nothing to dismiss these strangers despite my obvious discomfort.

He knew I hated strangers. He knew I hated when strangers stared at me, when I had to talk in front of them, and yet he did nothing, as indifferent and insensitive to me as he was to the noble puppets vying for his favor.

Where was the little boy I loved?

Where was my best friend?

"You _viper-bat_!" I cried.

**It was like a slap across the face.**

**She spun on her heel to storm out, and I chased after her, sending a halting look to the others who tried to follow.**

"**Ursa, STOP," I ordered, gently grabbing her by the wrist.**

"**Why?" she spat back, standing on her tip toes in a vain attempt to get in my face. "B****ecause you've so commanded it, oh mighty Fire Prince Ozai?"**

"**Well... Yes," I teased with a slight curl to my lip, but she did not find it funny.**

"**You really **_**are **_**an insensitive viper-bat," she half-gasped in disbelief before trying to storm off again.**

"**You know I didn't mean it. Stop acting like a five-year-old."**

"**Stop acting like a four-year-old whose toy's been taken away," she bit back, calm before snapping again. "A****nd stop grabbing my wrist! Did you 'mean it' when you told future soldiers to show 'the enemy' no honor? When you called that poor boy pathetic for protesting a cheater? When you laughed at his pain instead of making sure he was all right? When you blatantly showed off and mortified your supposed friends to feel-"**

"All right, all right," he groaned. "I'm...I sent him a look. "Sorry. There. I said it. Are you happy now? Can we go get some ash banana bread?"

_Oh no you don't. That won't tempt me this time. I already had some of Lu Sen's._

"**No. I'm not the one... Forget it," she sighed in defeat, turning to leave and stabbing me in the heart.**

** Ursa was back. Ursa was **_**finally**_** back, and she was going to leave me alone again?**

"**Stop this!" I demanded again, getting mad and blocking her path. "I****don't want to fight with you."**

"**Neither do I, but you make it very difficult for me not to when you fight with everyone else, when you're cold and cruel and find some sick pleasure in... Please, just... Just let me be angry at you for a little while, Ozai," she begged with big, sorrowful eyes and stepped around me to walk away. "W****e'll both cool down, and-"**

"_**Please**_**," I requested, swallowing back bile from having to say the word. "Y****ou're finally back. I want-"**

**And then she looked up at me with eyes that truly **_**were **_**sorrow-filled. She seemed to age twenty years, and the unfamiliar tone in her voice tore away at my heart.**

"**Oh Ozai, When will you realize that you can't have everything you want?"**

_**Well, perhaps not immediately... **_

**Seeming to hear my thoughts, Ursa looked half ready to slap me.**

**I smirked anyway.**

"**Come on," I chuckled carelessly. "Y****ou know you're-"  
**

"**NO."**

** Ursa was the only girl to say I couldn't have something, to act like something other than a possession, to say I couldn't have her. So, of course, she was the only girl I wanted. However to accomplish that, I knew better than to follow her when she left. **

**She left.**

**Again.**

** She was supposed to understand. She was supposed to see that leaving me to sulk in my own misery only made me turn into a monster all the more, that leaving me turned me into the soulless person that so disgusted her. Yes, I was insensitive and bitter and cynical, but she made me that way! She was the only door I had to anything else, but she kept slamming it in my face! It was **_**her **_**fault not mine! It was Iroh's fault. It was Azulon's fault. It was—**

"**Where's that brat going?" Chan asked.**

**I set his hair on fire.**

_**It's my fault.**_

The next day, Lu Sen banished the General from her presence, knowing how he worried over her condition. The more the prince tried to hide it, the more clearly the princess saw it. He gave in once she insisted nothing else would please her more than for him to take a day off, and he was, at that moment, sparring with Fire Prince Ozai.

"Ozai and Iroh?" I asked when Suzu told me. My state of disbelief that made me forget to use their titles in front of her. "Sparring?"

_This can't end well._

Ozai towered over his brother as they seemed to engage in a true Agni Kai. They weren't even in the official chamber, simply sparring in the Coronation Plaza because they decided to do their sunrise bending there. The need for such formality became clear when I realized that Fire Lord Azulon was among their large audience, enthroned above the rest with a stare of deadly concentration almost exactly like his son's.

But the Fire Lord's was far colder.

Aware of every movement, of every breeze and blade of grass, Ozai moved against his brother with a terrible glory and ruthless majesty, and yet more grace than any dancer. Both princes relied on instinct over training, letting the element breathe from their spirits, but it was Ozai whom I could not look away from.

Whom I could never look away from.

Iroh seemed to understand fire in its relation to everything else, every other element and part of nature, and he seemed to understand every part of fire's nature, moving, flowing, and breathing with it, but Ozai WAS fire. There was no way around it. For better or worse, Ozai embodied flame. All the enlightenment and experience and wisdom in the world could not change make fire better than fire.

Even when that fire was fueled by jealousy.

And that it was.

**I'd been looking up to Iroh my entire life, but then I outgrew him. Quite literally. For the first time in my life, I could take on my brother. I could be his match in bending.**

**I might, even, be able to defeat him.**

** Iroh had more experience. Nearly forty or not, he was in better shape than most of our army, and he understood fire better than almost anyone. He was possibly stronger and more powerful than he had ever been, but I knew what he was capable of. I'd been watching him for years, and I knew his moves, his technique, his strengths, his strengths that could be used as weaknesses (since he didn't have real weaknesses), and his entire philosophy of bending. I knew him. I knew his bending.**

**But he didn't know mine.**

_**Well, not my bending of the past two years at least.**_

As Ozai realized that he could gain the upper hand, that Iroh's stance wasn't prepared for the forceful blast he could create, his eyes flamed with more resentment than even he knew he had within him. Fifteen years worth of neglect, favoritism, misunderstanding, and suppression overtook my prince, making the little boy I held so dear unrecognizable.

**Just as began my move, I glanced at the audience, feeling her presence like I felt the sun's heat, needing to know my best friend was there for me, that Ursa—**

**She shook her head, the look in her eyes unmistakable.**

_**Don't.**_

_**Please.**_

_**For me.**_

_**DON'T.**_

**So I did something that I hadn't in years.**

**I hesitated.**

Ozai had to finish his move in a way that blocked Iroh's breath of fire. While the audience cheered their 泥ragon of the West,the forgotten prince looked at me, angrily. "Why?" his golden gems seemed to demand.

**Her thoughts were plain to read.**

_**If you love me, prove it.**_

_**Lose.**_

**If I lost, I would win her. If I won, I would lose her.**

**To lose her would be a fate worse than death, but was it worth the loss of my pride?**

The prince shifted ever-so-slightly and gave Iroh an opening. Few others would've noticed it, but Iroh couldn't miss it. Even then, it was too subtle for the General to suspect anything at the time, and he took his chance to knock Ozai down.

He fell, and the crowd roared.

**Nothing was worth losing her.**

"**Well done, brother," Iroh complimented sincerely, offering me his hand. I took it, and he raised an eyebrow once I stood back up. "D****id you...?" he started to consider, frowning slightly before a chant of his moniker began.**

"**Drag-on-of-the-West! Drag-on-of-the-West!"**

**I bowed to him, and he bowed in turn before clasping my hand in his and holding them high.**

"**Fire Prince Ozai!" he shouted, and I pasted on a wide smile to hide my fury.**

"**General Iroh!" I shouted before he could get any ideas about giving **_**me **_**an epithet. "C****rown Prince and Dragon of the West!"**

** They roared once more, and I glanced at the Fire Lord. It was difficult to identify any emotion other than anger on that man's face, but he seemed to be wavering between two. He was either outraged or relieved, and he couldn't tell any more than I could.**

** I bowed my head to him, and his chin almost-imperceptibly dipped in reply, eyes of the coldest flame calculating once again.**

** I left Iroh to his fans, going where I knew **_**she **_**would go. Prince Charming joked with and flattered and thanked the "h****umbling" people, but I was too frustrated to envy him their adoration. I'd appeased Ursa, but that didn't mean I had to be happy about it.**

**She just sat there on the fountain's edge, feeding turtle ducks without a care in the world.**

"Why on earth...?" he demanded, marching into the garden with shaking fists. "I could have beaten him!

Once he finished yelling in my face, I spoke patiently.

"And what would that have proven? That you're just as, if not more powerful than, your brother the heir apparent? The Fire Lord _knows _that, Ozai! And _it terrifies_ _him_," I whispered, fear for him crushing my heart. "It terrifies him that the biggest threat to his firstborn son... is his second. Proving that for all the world to see, Azulon would've had no choice but to..."

I trailed off, staring at the grass, unable to meet his eyes.

"To what?" he asked in a low voice without emotion.

"I don't know," I lied, muttering. "To answer it in some way. It wouldn't have been good, Ozai. Can't you see that?"

**She was right. **

**I was wrong. **

He didn't say anything for a while. He didn't express anything. He just sat down and sighed, resting his head on his hands.

**She sat next to me, but she didn't speak. She didn't have to. We breathed in the silence, simply existing. Then, when she thought I was ready...**

"**I didn't realize you were so mad at Iroh."**

"**I wasn't. Not really. Not at Iroh."**

_**Just the world.**_

**She nodded her understanding and watched the turtleducks.**

"**You know, my favorite teacher, she says that fire is life. And it is. ****Fire is energy, passion, light, hope, and beauty. But it's also such a great representation of anger, bitterness, pain... human nature. It stands for all the good and bad of human nature. It's the only unpredictable element. It's what the world revolves around. ****Fire can cleanse, but if left unchecked, it either fizzles out, or it builds and builds until it consumes everything in its path. Rage? Bitterness? Heartache? They can be used to right wrongs, to combat injustice, to grow wiser and stronger, but if you let them, they can eat away at you until nothing's left. Just ash."**

**I didn't hear her words at the time. I listened, but it didn't click.**

**I was still reeling from the confirmation that the Fire Lord feared me.**

**And I would never fear him again.**

This chapter is longer than expected so I'll just cut it off here. I also want to thank my reviewers, especially ElloZo. Your words mean so much to me! Let me know if random Chinese characters show up again!


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